STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF CU2O QUANTUM DOTS/ZNO NANOROD

Abstract

Photoelectrochemical Cells (PECs) utilize solar energy to produce hydrogen gas, a useful combustible resource. Along with photovoltaics, PECs will contribute to the effort of meeting global energy demand. Nanorods provide several benefits over conventional planar structures such as: greater light absorption, greater surface area for increased chemical reaction rates and larger junctions for increased photo currents. We have developed visible sensitive heterojunction consisting of p-type Cu2O colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) (low bandgap) anchored on the ZnO (ntype ZnO, high-bandgap) nanorods. In these kind of heterojunctions , an n-type ZnO layer acts both as a host that chemically binds to the Cu2O CQDs and as an electron carrier with Cu2O QDs. The number of Cu2O QDs loaded onto the n-type ZnO layer increases the sensitivity in the visible region. The structure and the morphology of these films were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM),Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX). The optical property was investigated by UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy and Cathodoluminescence (CL) techniques