The rapidly increasing global demand for energy combined with the environmental impact of fossil fuels has spurred the search for alternative sources of clean energy. One promising approach is to convert solar energy into hydrogen fuel using photoelectrochemical cells. However, the semiconducting photoelectrodes used in these cells typically have low efficiencies and/or stabilities. Here we show that a silicon-based photocathode with a capping epitaxial oxide layer can provide efficient and stable hydrogen production from water. In particular, a thin epitaxial layer of strontium titanate (SrTiO3) was grown directly on Si(001) by molecular beam epitaxy. Photogenerated electrons can be transported easily through this layer because of the conduction-band alignment and lattice match between single-crystalline SrTiO3 and silicon. The approach was used to create a metal-insulator-semiconductor photocathode that, under a broad-spectrum illumination at 100 mW cm(-2), exhibits a maximum photocurrent density of 35 mA cm(-2) and an open circuit potential of 450 mV; there was no observable decrease in performance after 35 hours of operation in 0.5 M H2SO4. The performance of the photocathode was also found to be highly dependent on the size and spacing of the structured metal catalyst. Therefore, mesh-like Ti/Pt nanostructured catalysts were created using a nanosphere lithography lift-off process and an applied-bias photon-to-current efficiency of 4.9% was achieved.

Single-crystal InAs nanowires (NWs) are synthesized using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and fabricated into NW field-effect transistors (NWFETs) on a SiO(2)/n(+)-Si substrate with a global n(+)-Si back-gate and sputtered SiO(x)/Au underlap top-gate. For top-gate NWFETs, we have developed a model that allows accurate estimation of characteristic NW parameters, including carrier field-effect mobility and carrier concentration by taking into account series and leakage resistances, interface state capacitance, and top-gate geometry. Both the back-gate and the top-gate NWFETs exhibit room-temperature field-effect mobility as high as 6580 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), which is the lower-bound value without interface-capacitance correction, and is the highest mobility reported to date in any semiconductor NW.

A novel design is presented for a nanowire/polymer hybrid photodiode. n-InP nanowires are grown directly onto an indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode to increase carrier collection efficiency and to eliminate the need for an expensive substrate. Experiments show that an ohmic contact is achieved between the nanowires and the ITO electrode. The nanowires are then enveloped by a high hole mobility conjugated polymer, poly(3-hexylthiophene). Compared to the control polymer-only device, the inclusion of InP nanowires increases the forward bias current conduction by 6-7 orders of magnitude. A high rectification ratio of 155 is achieved in these photodiodes along with a low ideality factor of 1.31. The hybrid device produces a photoresponse with a fill factor of 0.44, thus showing promise as an alternative to current polymer solar cell designs.

The capacitive effects of interface trap states in top-gated InAs nanowire field effect transistors and their influence on the experimental extraction of transport parameters are discussed. Time resolved transfer characteristics exhibit transient behavior indicating surface state trapping and detrapping with long characteristic time constants of 45s. Varying gate voltage sweep rate results in a time-dependent extrinsic transconductance; a reduced gate voltage sweep rate leads to a charge neutral interface, reduced interface state capacitance, higher measured transconductance, and minimal hysteresis. These results demonstrate that measurements with a charge neutralized or passivated surface are key to extract intrinsic nanowire transport parameters.

It is shown that interface trap states have pronounced effects on carrier transport and parameter extraction from top-gated InAs nanowire field effect transistors ͑NWFETs͒. Due to slow surface state charging and discharging, the NWFET characteristics are time dependent with time constants as long as ϳ45 s. This is also manifested in a time-dependent extrinsic transconductance that severely affects carrier mobility and carrier density determination from conventional three-terminal current-voltage characteristics. Slow gate voltage sweep rates result in charge balance between carrier capture and emission from interface states and lead to reduced hysteresis in the transfer curves. The gate transconductance is thus increased and intrinsic NW transport parameters can be isolated. In the InAs NWFETs, a carrier mobility value of ϳ16 000 cm 2 / V s was obtained from the transfer curves at slow sweep rates, which is significantly higher than ϳ1000 cm 2 / V s obtained at fast sweep rates. A circuit model that takes into account the reduction in the extrinsic transconductance is used to estimate an interface state capacitance to be ϳ2 F/cm −2 , a significant value that can lead to underestimation of carrier mobility.