Charging properties of the silicon / zinc oxide nanoparticle heterostructure

Abstract

Zinc oxide ZnO is a semiconductor with a direct band gap of 3.37 eV at room temperature, which makes ZnO a promising material for use in many areas, such as photocatalytic water and air purification, photocatalytic water splitting, optoelectronics, gas sensors, gas sensors. Zinc oxide also has a number of advantages over other materials used in photocatalysis: low cost, non-toxicity, low reflectance in the solar spectrum, the ability to create low-dimensional structures using chemical etching (amphotericity), resistance to high-energy radiation, flexible changing of electrophysical and optical properties by doping it with various impurities and controlling the conditions for its production. The implementation of p-type ZnO is difficult because pure ZnO with a wurtzite structure naturally occurs in the form of an n-type semiconductor. It is caused by oxygen vacancies, excess zinc, and the presence of hydrogen atoms.