Metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) photoelectrodes offer a simple alternative to the traditional semiconductor-liquid junction and the conventional p-n junction electrode. Highly efficient MIS photoanodes require interfacial surface passivating oxides and high workfunction metals to produce a high photovoltage. Herein, we investigate and analyze the effect of interfacial oxides and metal workf...

Nanocrystals prepared in organic media can be easily self-assembled into close-packed hexagonal monolayers on solvent evaporation for various applications. However, they usually rely on the use of organometallic precursors that are soluble in organic solvents. Herein we report a general protocol to transfer metal ions from an aqueous solution to an organic medium, which involves mixing the aque...

Silicon nanowires assembled from clusters or etched from the bulk, connected to aluminum electrodes and passivated, are studied with large-scale local-density-functional simulations. Short ( approximately 0.6 nm) wires are fully metallized by metal-induced gap states resulting in finite conductance ( approximately e(2)/h). For longer wires ( approximately 2.5 nm) nanoscale Schottky barriers dev...

We present a theoretical study of the physical characteristics of metal/semiconductor junctions. Using first principle pseudopotential calculations, we have investigated the nature of electronic states with energies within the semiconductor band gap of representative abrupt, defect-free, anion-terminated metal/III-V interfaces. Namely, we focused on Al contacts to GaAs(001), AlAs(001) and cubic...