One-Dimensional Silicon Nano-/microstructures Based Opto-Electronic Devices

One-dimensional (1D) nanostructures, including nanorods, nanowiskers, nanowires, nanotubes and nanobelts, have been receiving a great deal of research attention from industry and academia in recent years. Due to their special and outstanding many characteristics, such as effective light–trapping ability, bandgap tunability, efficient charge carrier collection, high carrier mobility, large surface-to-volume ratio and excellent thermal conductivity, such nanostructures play a very important role in the manufacture of high-performance devices with novel functionalities. To date, a number of materials, such as TiO₂ (titanium-oxide), ZnO₂ (zinc-oxide), Si (silicon), C (carbon), Ga₂O₃ (gallium oxide) and SnO₂ (tin-oxide), have been employed in the production of one-dimensional 1D structures for the fabrication of high-performance electronic and opto-electronic devices. Among them, silicon (Si) is particularly attractive material for a wide range of opto-electronic device application owing to its highly developed technology and outstanding features such as high thermal conductivity, facile doping control, hardness and excellent optical and electrical properties. In this chapter, although we discuss the recent advances in optoelectronic applications of 1D Si nano-/microstructures, it focuses mainly on our own recent studies based on the synthesis of ordered and disordered Si-nanowires/micropillars and their applications in photodetection and harvesting solar energy. In particular, a special focus will be given on the fabrication of Si nano-/microstructures based solar cells with transferred 1D nano-/microstructures from Si-wafer to glass substrates via using a fracture-transfer printing technique, which have demonstrated the possibility of the fabrication of low-cost, transparent, flexible and high-efficient next generation 1D Si nano-/microstructures based next generation opto-electronic devices.