Low Dimension Semiconducting Composite Nanomaterials

Recently, low dimension nanostructures have gained considerable attention due to their technological potential as unique types of nanoscale building blocks for future optoelectronic devices and systems. Semiconducting composite nanomaterials, which can combine the advantages of two or more components, have been the focus in the area of nanomaterials synthesis and device application.In this paper, we report our work on the preparation of composite nanomaterials based on CNTs.CNTs were coated by organic or inorganic species via novel and facile methods (Fig. 1 and Fig.2).These functional CNTs based composites show eminent prospects and opportunities for new applications in a wide variation of areas.     

TiO(2) porous electrodes with hierarchical branched inner channels for charge transport in viscous electrolytes.

Titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) photoelectrodes with micro/nano hierarchical branched inner channels have been prepared by an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) technique and assembled to form dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Excellent penetration of ionic-liquid electrolytes and enhanced light harvesting in the longer wavelength region are realized within the composite-structure electrode, thus a better fill factor (ff) of 75.3 % and higher conversion efficiency (eta) of 7.1 % are obtained for viscous ionic-liquid electrolytes compared to pure nanostructured films. Hierarchical branched channels in the photoanodes can efficiently improve the transport properties of redox-active species in viscous electrolytes, which is demonstrated by electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The incident monochromatic photon-to-electron conversion efficiency (IPCE) shows that enhanced light scattering in the composite film is of benefit for light harvesting and thus for solar energy conversion efficiency.