Modifying growth conditions of ZnO nanorods for solar cell applications

We show that the size of nanorods grown by a vapour phase transport method on different substrates can be easily changed by an order of magnitude. This allows producing customized nanorod arrays that can improve the efficiency of Gratzel-type solar cells as well as polymer hybrid solar cells. Luminescence measurements show that doping is possible simply by the choice of the substrate. The crystalline quality is examined by high resolution TEM measurements (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)