Near-perfect broadband absorption from hyperbolic metamaterial nanoparticles.

Broadband absorbers are essential components of many light detection, energy harvesting, and camouflage schemes. Current designs are either bulky or use planar films that cause problems in cracking and delamination during flexing or heating. In addition, transferring planar materials to flexible, thin, or low-cost substrates poses a significant challenge.

High-Quality, Ultraconformal Aluminum-Doped Zinc Oxide Nanoplasmonic and Hyperbolic Metamaterials.

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is a tunable low-loss plasmonic material capable of supporting dopant concentrations high enough to operate at telecommunication wavelengths. Due to its ultrahigh conformality and compatibility with semiconductor processing, atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a powerful tool for many plasmonic applications. However, despite many attempts, high-quality AZO with a plasma frequency below 1550 nm has not yet been realized by ALD.

NiO(x)-Fe2O3-coated p-Si photocathodes for enhanced solar water splitting in neutral pH water.

We report successful growth of a uniform and scalable nanocomposite film of Fe2O3 nanorods (NRs) and NiOx nanoparticles (NPs), their properties and application for enhanced solar water reduction in neutral pH water on the surface of p-Si photocathodes.

Si photoanode protected by a metal modified ITO layer with ultrathin NiO(x) for solar water oxidation.

We report an ultrathin NiOx catalyzed Si np(+) junction photoanode for a stable and efficient solar driven oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in water. A stable semi-transparent ITO/Au/ITO hole conducting oxide layer, sandwiched between the OER catalyst and the Si photoanode, is used to protect the Si from corrosion in an alkaline working environment, enhance the hole transportation, and provide a pre-activation contact to the NiOx catalyst. The NiOx catalyzed Si photoanode generates a photocurrent of 1.

ZnO/CuO heterojunction branched nanowires for photoelectrochemical hydrogen generation.

We report a facile and large-scale fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) ZnO/CuO heterojunction branched nanowires (b-NWs) and their application as photocathodes for photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar hydrogen production in a neutral medium. Using simple, cost-effective thermal oxidation and hydrothermal growth methods, ZnO/CuO b-NWs are grown on copper film or mesh substrates with various ZnO and CuO NWs sizes and densities. The ZnO/CuO b-NWs are characterized in detail using high-resolution scanning and transmission electron microscopies exhibiting single-crystalline defect-free b-NWs with smooth and clean surfaces.