⟨0001⟩-Preferential Growth of CdSe Nanowires on Conducting Glass: Template-Free Electrodeposition and Application in Photovoltaics

By contrast with the rich, wurztite-related, one-dimensional nanostructure of ZnO and its wide variety of applications, there only exists a few methods for the controlled and designed synthesis of one-dimensional CdSe nanostructures. Here, we describe a low-temperature and directed preparation of CdSe nanowires in a simple one-step, template-free electrochemical deposition. The preparation takes advantage of both the wurtzite structure characteristics and current-induced preferential orientation. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns clearly verify that the prepared CdSe nanowires have a single-crystal wurtzite structure and grow along the [0001] (c-axis). With the discovery of other one-dimensional CdSe nanostructures and CdS nanowires, it is anticipated that this electrochemical synthesis method can be extended to other nanostructures of CdSe and to other II−VI semiconductors and can also be developed into a systematic synthe...