XC carried out the photovoltaic performance measurements. RZ and XS carried out the preparation of TiO2 nanorod arrays. YC supervised the work and finalized the manuscript. JJ and LM proofread the manuscript and polished the language. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Group III-V semiconductor nanowires, i.e., InAs, InP, GaAs, GaP, and InSb, have attracted substantial scientific and technological interests in nanoelectronic devices due to their high electronic

transfer characteristic selleck chemicals llc with low leakage currents. Meanwhile, the existence of an electron accumulation layer occurs near the material surface that causes high surface sensitivity and electric conductivity [1]. Among the III-V group, indium antimony (InSb) bulk (E g = 0.17 eV, at 300 K) is a promising III-V RAD001 direct-bandgap semiconductor material with zinc-blende (FCC) structure. Due to its narrow bandgap, InSb is extensively used in the fabrication of infrared optical detectors, infrared homing missile guidance systems, and infrared astronomy [2–4]. Next, a significant advantage of InSb is that it has extremely high electron mobility (electron mobility of 77,000 cm2 V−1 s−1) that resulted from the natural small effective mass (m* = 0.013 m e) and the ballistic length (up to 0.7 μm at 300 K), which are higher than those of any known semiconductor

[5, 6]. Hence, there is significant interest in InSb for the fundamental investigation of its nanostructure for potential application as nanoelectronic devices. Interestingly, owing to their high surface-to-volume ratio and quantum confinement effect, one-dimensional (1-D) semiconductive nanostructures exhibit unique optical, electronic, and transport properties, which are widely applied in photoconductors [7], electron field emitters [8], and dye-sensitized solar cells [9]. In the middle of these various application fields, 1-D electron field emission has attracted wide attention Selleck GDC-0449 recently

due to the sufficient Ribose-5-phosphate isomerase high current density obtained from small electrical field. It is because a cone nanostructure (usually several hundred nanometers) is able to greatly amplify the electrical field within an extremely tiny region of the tips. Nanostructures have consequently served as the proper candidates for electron field emitters [10]. Up to now, different thermal synthesis methods have been used to produce InSb nanowires, i.e., chemical beam epitaxy [11], chemical vapor deposition [12], and pulsed laser deposition [13]. However, the fast and simple synthesis of stoichiometric InSb nanostructures is also of priority concern. The different partial vapor pressures of In and Sb make it difficult to form the InSb compound. In particular, the low bonding energy of InSb causes the tendency of In and Sb to dissociate over 400°C. Additionally, the In-rich and Sb-rich regions derive from the large different melting points of In and Sb elements.