Two step deposition method with a high growth rate for ZnO nanowire arrays and its application in photovoltaics

Abstract We present an approach for the growth of ZnO nanowire arrays with a length of up to 30 μm on fluorine doped tin oxide substrates with a growth rate of 20 μm per hour. The growth was carried out in a vapor phase transport setup at a temperature of 600 °C. To achieve an aligned growth on fluorine doped tin oxide substrates we used wet-chemically grown nanowire arrays with typical length of 2 to 3 μm as a seeding layer. Additionally the nanowire arrays were used as electrodes for the manufacturing of dye sensitized solar cells and the best achieved efficiencies were 1.83% at 10 mW/cm 2 and 1.47% at 100 mW/cm 2 .