Actually, most of the electric energy is being produced by fossil fuels and great is the search for viable alternatives. The most appealing and promising technology is photovoltaics. It will become truly mainstream when its cost will be comparable to other energy sources. One way is to significantly enhance device efficiencies, for example by increasing the number of band gaps in multijunction ...

Ge nanowire electrodes fabricated by using vapor-liquid-solid growth on metallic current collector substrates were found to have good performance during cycling with Li. An initial discharge capacity of 1141 mA.h/g was found to be stable over 20 cycles at the C/20 rate. High power rates were also observed up to 2C with Coulombic efficiency > 99%. Structural characterization revealed that the Ge...

Individual Au catalyst nanoparticles are used for selective laser-induced chemical vapor deposition of single germanium nanowires. Dark-field scattering reveals in real time the optical signatures of all key constituent growth processes. Growth is initially triggered by plasmonic absorption in the Au catalyst, while once nucleated the growing Ge nanowire supports magnetic and electric resonance...

Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) are being actively investigated due to their unique functional properties which result from their quasi-one-dimensional structure. However, control over the crystallographic growth direction, diameter, location, and morphology of high-density NWs is essential to achieve the desirable properties and to integrate these NWs into miniaturized devices. This article pres...

We apply DFT calculations to evaluate the electronic properties of germanium nanowires (GeNWs) upon adsorption of water molecules and reveal the possible causes of the experimentally observed electrical hysteresis in GeNWs based electronic devices. We show that the absorption of water molecules on the GeNW surface would lead to the formation of hydroxyl passivated GeNWs (OH-GeNWs). The first st...

Germanium nanowire (GeNW)-positioned Schottky solar cell was fabricated by a solution process. A GeNW-containing solution was spread out onto asymmetric metal electrodes to produce a rectifying current flow. Under one-sun illumination, the GeNW-positioned Schottky solar cell yields an open-circuit voltage of 177 mV and a short-circuit current of 19.2 nA. Schottky and ohmic contacts between a si...

Ge nanostructures were synthesized by reduction of GeO(2) in H(2) atmosphere at various temperatures. Entangled and straight Ge nanowires with oxide shells were grown at high temperatures. Ge nanowires with various numbers of nodules were obtained at low temperatures. Ge nanowires without nodules exhibited remarkable field emission properties with a turn-on field of 4.6 V µm(-1) and field enhan...