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Smith explains that with the geometry of the nanowires you can have a long axis running the length of the wire, which gives you lots of possibilities for absorption as the light comes down, but then you also have this very small diameter.
"When contacts are interspersed along either side, essentially then the electrons in the holes don't have to travel very far before they are collected," says Smith. "So in principle it can become a more effective detector as well as a more effective solar cell."
SMALL DIMENSION NANOWIRES
"When you get to very small dimensions in nanowires that are small in diameter, but are a few microns long, those properties then change and can show quantum properties and become almost one-dimensional," says Jackson. "The physics then changes as you change those sizes."
Jackson and Smith found that the nanowire's ultra-thin outer shells functioned best at widths of four to eight nanometers, which is 25,00 and 12,500 times smaller respectively, than the diameter of a human hair.
When looking at the overarching benefits of working with microscopic nanostructures the researchers see tremendous potential for its ability to pack much more high-energy efficiency into small devices with finite space. It's getting closer to a win-win for everyone, they're saying, especially when this research enters the next stage, bringing it closer to functioning inside electronic and optical sensor devices.
"Our fundamental investigation is still a step away from a direct optical device application," says Jackson. "But you can clearly see over time that this collaborative research has made an impact."
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