For the first time, nonstoichiometric WO2.72 was used as a counter electrode (CE) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Oxygen-vacancy-rich WO2.72 nanorod bundles with notable catalytic activity for triiodide and thiolate reduction were prepared in this study. The photovoltaic parameters of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with WO2.72 nanorod bundles as CEs are superior compared with those o...

Hexagonal patterns of gold nanorods were made by assembling gold nanorod-coated poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) microgels. The required population of nanorods on the microgels was achieved by attaching nanoparticle seeds on the latter and growing them to nanorods. The various materials prepared were characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Similar experiments with...

Conversion/alloying reactions, in which more lithium ions are involved, are severely handicapped by the dramatic volume changes. A facile and versatile strategy has been developed for integrating the SnO2 nanorod array in the PPy nanofilm for providing a flexible confinement for anchoring each nanorod and maintaining the entire structural integrity and providing sustainable contact; therefore, ...

This paper reports combined hydrophobicity and mechanical durability through the nanoscale engineering of surfaces in the form of nanorod-polymer composites. Specifically, the hydrophobicity derives from nanoscale features of mechanically hard ZnO nanorods and the mechanical durability derives from the composite structure of a hard ZnO nanorod core and soft polymer shell. Experimental character...

Aligned ZnO nanorod arrays films were grown on LiNbO3 substrates by aqueous growth, and subsequently rendered superhydrophobic with RF sputtered coated Teflon. The as-prepared surface exhibits superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle (CA) of 154.5. After 2 hours of UV irradiation on the surface, the surface wettability was approaching hydrophilic state; CA was measured to be 113. This stu...

We use molecular dynamics simulations to examine the possibility of rolling nanorods on the surfaces of polar liquids. Asymmetric charging of nanorod surfaces, generated by light excitation of its photoactive hydrophobic surfactants, can induce asymmetric Coulombic coupling to the polar liquid surfaces. We demonstrate that under this driving nanorods with diameters of 3-10 nm can roll on water ...

We perform first-principles calculations of wurtzite GaAs nanorods to explore the factors determining charge distributions in polar nanostructures. We show that both the direction and magnitude of the dipole moment d of a nanorod, and its electric field, depend sensitively on how its surfaces are terminated and do not depend strongly on the spontaneous polarization of the underlying lattice. We...

In this paper, rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays are fabricated by a template-free method and proposed as a promising anode for aqueous Li-ion battery. The as-prepared TiO2 nanorod arrays exhibited reversible Li-ion insertion/extraction ability in aqueous LiOH electrolyte. Moreover, galvanostatic charge/discharge test results demonstrated that the reversible capacity of TiO2 nanorods could reach about...

This review introduces and summarizes the fundamentals and various technical approaches developed for the template-based synthesis of nanorod, nanowire and nanotube arrays. After a brief introduction to various concepts for the growth of nanorods, nanowires and nanobelts, attention will be focused mainly on the most widely used and well established techniques for the template-based growth of na...

Efficiency droop is a major obstacle facing high-power application of InGaN/GaN quantum-well (QW) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In this paper, we report the suppression of efficiency droop induced by the process of density-activated defect recombination in nanorod structures of a-plane InGaN/GaN QWs. In the high carrier density regime, the retained emission efficiency in a dry-etched nanorod sa...