(375g) Synthesis and Characterization of Electrochemically-Grown Zinc Oxide Nanowires for Use in Rectenna-Based Heat Harvesters

Synthesis and Characterization of Electrochemically-grown Zinc Oxide Nanowires for Use in Rectenna-based Heat Harvesters

Haley, Adrian Lucas; Yang, Shendu; Pinhero, P.J.

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211

Spintronic devices offer a possibility of enhanced functionality, higher speed, and reduced power consumption compared with conventional electronic materials. Zinc oxide has been proven to show noticeable spin properties after spin polarization which can be useful in fields such as information storage, photovoltaics, and thermoelectrics.

In this study, ZnO nanostructures are electrodeposited on a silver coated n-type (100) silicon wafer in a metallic salt solution. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are used to study the effect of experimental parameters of concentration, growing voltage, and growing time on the morphology of ZnO nanowires. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is used to characterize the purity of ZnO nanostructures. This is followed by the fabrication of a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) layered sandwich, which can be potentially used as an electron-tunneling diode device. The current-voltage properties of MIM devices are characterized using conductive atomic force microscopy and four-point probe measurements.