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The growth of ZnO nanowires (NWs) on a zinc oxide (ZnO)/textured crystalline-Si (c-Si) photovoltaic device via the hydrothermal method is investigated. The average length and diameter of the ZnO NWs are around 0.65 μm and 70–100 nm, respectively. Experimental results indicate that a ZnO/textured c-Si photovoltaic device with ZnO NWs has the lowest reflectance among the tested substrates, especially in the range of ultraviolet (UV) and green light (350 nm to 590 nm). Compared to SiN x /textured c-Si and ZnO/textured c-Si photovoltaic devices, the proposed device exhibits photovoltaic conversion efficiency improvements of around 7% and 6.3%, respectively. After encapsulation, the ZnO NWs/ZnO/textured c-Si photovoltaic device has the lowest drop in conversion efficiency. Furthermore, a small NW diameter increases light absorption.

The ZnO nanowires (NWs) on a textured crystalline-silicon photovoltaic device as an anti-reflection layer (AR layer) have been optimized via a hydrothermal method. The better encapsulation material than ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) for the ZnO NWs AR layer has been investigated also. The best results were achieved the 300-nm long ZnO NWs as the AR layer on a 2.5 × 2.5-cm2 area solar cell, with the efficiency (η) reaching up to 15.21%, with an FF of 72.71%, VOC of 0.57 V, JSC of 36.07mA. The foregoing cell was encapsulated with silicone with the efficiency up to 14.53 %.

Au nanoparticles are adsorbed onto the surface of vertical ZnO nanowires to fabricate a field emitter. The effective field enhancement factor (β) reaches 2.9 × 104. The nanoparticle size is below 10 nm and the diameter of ZnO nanowires is around 50 nm. Under ultraviolet light illumination, the nano-size emitter has a β value of 4.2 × 104, which is more than that of pure ZnO nanowires. © 2013 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/2.019307jss] All rights reserved.

ZnO nanowires (NWs) synthesized using the vapor-phase deposition method on an Au electrode substrate with and without Au nanoparticle (NP) modification are applied for glucose detection. A significant enhancement of glucose sensitivity is obtained with Au NP modification. The Au NPs/ZnO NWs/Au electrode has peak currents gradually increasing from 41.2 to 155.5 μA, and the ZnO NWs/Au electrode has peak currents increasing from 23.6 to 82.2 μA with glucose concentration (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 mM) in cyclic voltammograms. Moreover, chronoamperometry results indicate that the response current of the Au NPs/ZnO NWs/Au electrode reached 140 μA in 18 mM glucose in 0.1M NaOH, whereas that of the ZnO NWs/Au electrode was only around 74 μA in 31.5 mM glucose.