The strain-induced band structure change in a semiconductor can change its resistivity, known as the piezoresistive effect. If the semiconductor is also a piezoelectric material, strain-induced polarization charge can control the current transport at the metal-semiconductor contact, which is called a 'piezotronic effect'. Piezotronic effect is intertwined with piezoresistive effect in the study...

Nanowire solar cells are promising candidates for powering nanosystems and flexible electronics. The strain in the nanowires, introduced during growth, device fabrication and/or application, is an important issue for piezoelectric semiconductor (like CdS, ZnO, and CdTe) based photovoltaic. In this work, we demonstrate the first largely enhanced performance of n-CdS/p-Cu(2)S coaxial nanowire pho...

In this paper, we study band-to-band and intersubband (ISB) characteristics of Si- and Ge-doped GaN/AlN heterostructures (planar and nanowires) structurally designed to absorb in the short-wavelength infrared region, particularly at 1.55 μm. Regarding the band-to-band properties, we discuss the variation of the screening of the internal electric field by free carriers, as a function of the dopi...

Converting mechanical energy into electricity could have applications in sensing, medical science, defence technology and personal electronics, and the ability of nanowires to 'scavenge' energy from ambient and environmental sources could prove useful for powering nanodevices. Previously reported nanowire generators were based on vertically aligned piezoelectric nanowires that were attached to ...

A simple chemical method is developed to integrate a novel room-temperature ferroelectric Sr1+δMn8O16 hollandite-like oxide nanowire thin film in silicon technology. This original material shows piezoelectric coefficient d33 value of 22 ± 6 pC N−1.

In this investigation, anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) with arrayed and regularly arranged nanopores is used as a template in the high-vacuum die casting of molten zinc metal (Zn) into the nanopores. The proposed technique yields arrayed Zn nanowires with an aspect ratio of over 600. After annealing, arrayed zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires are obtained. Varying the anodizing time yields AAO templates wi...

In this work, we design and fabricate a wireless system with the main operating device based on zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires. The main operating device is based on piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) achieved using ZnO nanowires grown hydrothermally on paper substrate. The fabricated NG is capable of harvesting ambient mechanical energy from various kinds of human motion, e.g., footsteps. The harves...

We have investigated the effects of different p-type polymer layers on the piezoelectric potential from ZnO nanowire (NWs) grown on silver (Ag) coated silicon (Si) substrate by the low temperature chemical synthesis method. Piezoelectric measurement was done by a conductive atomic force microscope (AFM). In the case of the poly(3,4ethylenedioxythiophene-Tosylate (PEDOT-Tos), the output voltage ...

We have studied the piezoelectric potential output of a ZnO wire/belt functionalized with p-type oligomer (2,5-Bis(octanoxy)-1,4-bis(4-formyl phenylene vinylene) benzene) (OPV2) when it was deflected by an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip in contact mode. In comparison to the ZnO wire/belt without oligomer coating, an extra positive voltage peak was observed prior to the appearance of a negati...