Organic solar cells have caught considerable attention in the past few years due to their potential for providing environmentally safe, flexible, lightweight, inexpensive, and roll-to-roll feasible production solar cells. However, the efficiency achieved in current organic solar cells is quite low, yet quick and successive improvements render it as a promising alternative. A hopeful approach to improve the efficiency is by exploiting the tandem concept which consists of stacking two or more organic solar cells in series. One important constituent in tandem solar cells is the middle electrode layer which is transparent and functions as a cathode for the first cell and an anode for the second cell. Most studies done so far have employed noble metals such as gold or silver as the middle electrode layer; however, they suffered from several shortcomings especially with respect to reproducibility. This thesis focuses on studying a new trend which employs an oxide material based on nano-particles as a transparent cathode (such as Zinc-oxide-nano-particles) along with a transparent anode so as to replace the middle electrode. Thus, this work presents a study on solution processable zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures, their proper handling techniques, and their potential as a middle electrode material in Tandem solar cells in many different configurations involving both polymer and small molecule materials. Moreover, the ZnO-np potential as a candidate for acceptor material is also investigated.

ZnO is one of the most important materials for electronics, optoelectronics, piezoelectricity and optics. With a wide band gap of 3.37eV and an exiton binding energy of 60meV, ZnO 1D nanostructures exhibit promising properties in a lot of optical device applications. It is also an important piezoelectric material and has applications in a new category of nanodevices, nano-piezotronics. Demonstrated prototype of devices includes nanogenerators, piezoelectric-FET, and a series of evolutive devices based on the concept of nanogenerator. This is based on working principle of a semiconductor and piezoelectric coupled property. This thesis is about the growth, characterization and device fabrication of ZnO nanowires and nanobelts for sensors and UV detectors. First, the fundamental synthesis of ZnO nanostructurs is investigated, particularly polar surface dominated nanostructues, to illustrate the unique growth configurations of ZnO. Detail study in this part includes nanobelts, nanorings, nanocombs, nanonetworks, and nanodiskettes synthesis. Important factors in driving the nanostructure synthesis mechanism are analyzed, such as the chemical activities of different surface of ZnO and the polar surface dominated effects. Then, the devices fabricated methods using individual nanowires/nanobelts and their electrical transport properties were carefully characterized. In this part, dominant factors which are critical for nanobelt device performance are investigated, such as the contact properties, interface effects, and durability testing. Also, a metal doping method is studied to explore the controlling and modification of nanowire electric and optical properties. Further more, I will present the surface functionalization of nanobelt for largely improving its electrical, optoelectronic and chemical performance. Surface functionalization of nanobelts is proven to be an effective method in enhancing the semiconductor and metal contact. Piezoelectric field-effect transistors will be demonstrated as a powerful approach as chemical sensors. Finally, a technique is illustrated for functionalizing the surfaces of ZnO nanobelts for enhancing its UV sensitivity by over five orders of magnitude. This demonstrates an effective approach for fabricatiing ultrasensitive UV detectors. The research results presented in this thesis have made great contribution to the growth, device fabrication and novel applications of ZnO nanostructures for photonics, optoelectronics and sensors.

In this study, we employed density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) to investigate the mechanical and electronic properties of one-dimensional zinc oxide nanostructure. This study can be arranged into two parts: In part I: We investigated the mechanical and electronic properties of one-dimensional zinc oxide nanostructure under axial mechanical deformations by density functional theory. In this case, we could find both the highest occupied molecular orbital and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital gap (HOMO-LUMO gap) and value of radial buckling will decrease linearly with the increase of axial strain. The changes of bond lengths and bond angles show the variation of nanostructure dependence to the increase of axial strain. This study also used partial density of state (PDOS), bond order (BO) and deformation density to analyse the differences of the electronic properties between the zinc oxide nanotubes under axial strain. In part II: This study, which employed molecular dynamics combines Buckingham and Core-Shell potentials, shows the different physical parameters, such as yield stress, young¡¦s modulus and slip vector to research the mechanical behavior and variation of structure of nanotube under axial strain.

This study describes the design and fabrication of dual-mode film bulk acoustic resonator (TFBAR) devices to construct wafer level T-ladder type filters. Reactive radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method was used to deposit c-axis- tilted ZnO piezoelectric thin films. The piezoelectric ZnO thin films were deposited by a two-step method at room temperature with off-axis. In this investigation, off-axis distance was varied to determine the optimal growth parameters of the tilted piezoelectric thin film. The SEM and XRD analysis reveal that ZnO thin films deposited at off-axis distances of 35 mm yielded a highly textured and sufficiently-tilted ZnO piezoelectric layer for dual-mode TFBAR. Additionally, the ZnO piezoelectric layer with off-axis distances of 35 mm exhibited enhanced competitive growth, and had a c-axis-tilted angle of 5¢X. To explore the relationship between the c-axis-tilted angle and the dual-mode resonance frequency responses (fL and fS) of TFBAR, two TFBAR devices were fabricated with ZnO c-axis tilted at 4.4¢X and 5¢X, respectively. The TFBAR device with 5¢X-tilted ZnO layer exists shear and longitudinal resonant modes. The center-frequency of longitudinal resonant mode is 2.2 times that of the shear resonant mode. The longitudinal mode is suitable for designing as a communication receiver (Rx) device at WCDMA band. On the other hand, the shear mode of TFBAR is suitable for EGSM-900 band. To optimize the characteristics, the filter was annealed by CTA treatment in 400 ¢J. For the frequency responses of the longitudinal wave, the insertion loss was upgraded from -5.77 dB without annealing to -4.85 dB as annealed, the band rejection was reduced from 13.57 dB to 12.65 dB, the bandwidth was broaden from 69.69 MHz to 73.12 MHz. On the other hand, for the frequency responses of the shear wave, the insertion loss was upgraded from -9.94 dB to -8.21 dB, the band rejection was reduced from 13.74 dB to 13 dB, the bandwidth was decreased from 28.13 MHz to 28.12 MHz.

In this thesis, Rayleigh-mode and Sezawa-mode surface acoustic wave devices, and SMR-based (solidly mounted resonator, SMR) thin film bulk acoustic wave devices were employed to construct the UV sensors. The oscillators are composed of acoustic wave devices, high-frequency amplifier and matching networks. Due to the fact that the different acoustic wave devices are associated with the different propagating behaviors, electromechanical coefficient and resonance characteristics, they lead to the diversely sensing properties. Although Rayleigh-mode and Sezawa-mode SAW devices are both constructed by a ZnO sensing layer, they operate with different resonance behaviors and propagate with different phase velocities in the layered structures. Therefore, they result in different frequency shifts and sensitivities while illuminating UV light on the surface of ZnO thin films. As to the SMR device, the acoustic waves are confined within the ZnO piezoelectric layer sandwiched between two metal electrodes and then resonance as standing waves. In general, thin film bulk acoustic wave devices, which are SMR devices in this thesis, possess a higher operating frequency and better frequency response than those of SAW devices. Therefore, it is expected that UV sensors based on SMR devices will lead to an excellent performance. The Rayleigh-mode SAW-based UV sensors consisted of a 3£gm-thickness ZnO thin film for sensing UV light and a 2mm-thickness LiNbO3 substrate for generating surface acoustic waves in the ZnO/ LiNbO3 layered structure. Because surface acoustic waves travel along the surface within the depth of one wavelength, 32 £gm herein, most of them propagate in the LiNbO3 substrate. SAWs were perturbed slightly and consequently resulted in an unsatisfactorily maximum frequency shift of 63.75 kHz when a UV light intensity of 1250 £gW/cm2 was illuminated on the surface of ZnO thin film. Because ZnO films in this thesis are used as the sensing layer for UV light, we adjusted the sputtering parameter of deposition temperature to improve their crystalline properties and further enhance the sensitivity of ZnO/LiNbO3 layered SAW devices. Finally, the maximum frequency shift was raised to 264 kHz with the same UV light intensity using the deposition temperature of 400 ¢J. The ZnO thin films in the ZnO/Si layered structure were simultaneously employed as the piezoelectric layer for generating SAWs and the sensing layer for UV light. Therefore, all of the acoustic waves propagate within the ZnO thin films and are easier disturbed than the devices operated with the ZnO/LiNbO3 layered structure. This accounts for the relatively large frequency shift of 1017 kHz with the UV light intensity of 551 £gW/cm2. The ½ £f type SMR device was adopted to construct the UV sensor due to their better resonance characteristics than those of ¼ £f type. As can be seen from the results that SMR-based UV sensor presented better UV sensing properties compared with SAW-based UV sensors. The reasons for the considerable frequency shifts and sensitivities can be attributed to that SMR-based sensor possesses a shorter resonance wavelength and a larger electromechanical coefficient than those of SAW-based devices. Finally, the maximum frequency shift of 552 kHz can be obtained when the illumination intensity of UV light was 212 £gW/cm2.

In this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanotip and nanorod were grown on glass substrate by aqueous solution deposition (ASD). Both characteristics of the two nanostructures were investigated. For fabrication of ZnO nanostructure UV photodetector, In-Zn inter-digitated metal electrode was evaporated on the top of the grown ZnO nanostructure to form the contact via. Compared with the common value (375 nm), both the peaks from the PL spectra of ZnO nanotip and nanorod are red-shifted (409 nm) due to the massive defects in nanotip and nanorod. In order to improve the photosensiblity, heterojunction of ZnO nanostructure/TiO2 film was prepared and were made into UV photodetector. Photoresponses of both nanotip and nanorod were improved after N2O annealing at 300oC. With the heterojunction of ZnO 1D nanostructure on TiO2 film, the photoresponses of both ZnO nanotip/TiO2 film can reach to 22.85, and the rise time and decay time are 40 and 82 seconds, respectively. On the other side, the photoresponses of both ZnO nanorod/TiO2 film can reach to 27.44, and the rise time and decay time are 22 and 133 seconds, respectively.

In this thesis, the growth of nonpolar m-plane zinc oxide (ZnO) nano-materials on (100) £^¡VLiAlO2 (LAO) substrates by a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process had been studied. The mixture powders of ZnO and graphite are used as the precursor of reaction sources. Ar/O2 are used as the carrier gas and reaction gas source respectively, and the Au thin-film coated on the LAO substrate is the catalyst for the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth mode. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used to study the influence of the varied growth conditions, such as deposition time, reaction pressure, growth temperature, and the distance between substrates and reaction powder ¡K etc., on the crystal structure, surface morphology, orientation and microstructure characterizations of the ZnO nanostructure. The pure (10-10) m-plane ZnO nano-materials can be obtained at the growth parameters of 830¢XC, 10 torr, 5 minutes, and 50 sccm of Ar/O2. Furthermore, photoluminescence (PL), cathodoluminescence (CL) and Raman spectroscope (Raman) were used to study optical properties and the inner stress of the materials.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the c-axis inclined ZnO films to produce dual-mode thin-film piezoelectric transducer. The cantilever beam vibration theory as a power generation mode in adopted to verify that the transducer is in suitable for the application in the environment for low-frequency vibration. In order to develop dual-mode thin-film piezoelectric transducer, this study uses radio-frequency magnetron sputtering method with off-axis growth to deposit ZnO films on Pt/Ti/stainless steel substrate(SUS304), the effects of deposition parameters on the characteristict of ZnO films are studied. Because zinc oxide thin-film is grown with c-axis tilt, so the piezoelectric transducer exhibits longitudinal-mode and shear-mode characteristics. The physical characteristics of ZnO thin films were obtained by the analyses of the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to discuss the surfaces, cross section and crystallization of ZnO thin films. Finally, the vibration test equipment in used for the measurement of electrical properties. The open and loaded voltages of the transducers were obtained by the measurement system. The optimal deposition parameters for ZnO thin films are sputtering pressure of 5 mTorr, RF power of 150W, substrate temperature of room temperature and oxygen concentration of 50%, which were determined by physical characteristics and voltage analysis. Under the optimal parameters, the ZnO thin-films are deposited with maximum shear-mode and tilting angles of 35¢X.The transducer was one-sid loaded with a piece of metal of 0.5 g load to enhance the cantilever vibration amplitude. As the input vibration of 65 Hz and vibration amplitude of 1mm were set, the maximum output power was obtained. The maximum open circuit voltage of 19.4 V was obtained. When the output of the transducers was recetified and filtered through a 1NN5711 Schottky diode bridge rectifier and a 33nF capacitor, the maximum power of 2.05£gW/cm2 was achieved with the load resistance of 5M£[.

Zinc oxide, with its direct wide bandgap and high exciton binding energy, is a promising material for optoelectronic devices. Quantum confinement effect and high surface to volume ratio of the nanowires imparts unique properties to them and makes them appealing for researchers. So far, zinc oxide nanowires have been used to fabricate various optoelectronic devices such as light emitting diodes, solar cells, sensors and photodetectors. To fabricate those optoelectronic devices, many different synthesis methods such as metal organic chemical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, pulsed laser deposition, electrodeposition and hydrothermal method have been explored. Among them, hydrothermal method is the most feasible one in terms of simplicity and low cost. In this thesis, hydrothermal method was chosen to synthesize zinc oxide nanowires. Synthesized zinc oxide nanowires were then used as electrically active components in light emitting diodes and ultraviolet photodetectors. Hybrid light emitting diodes, composed of inorganic/organic hybrids are appealing due to their flexibility, lightweight nature and low cost production methods. Beside the zinc oxide nanowires, complementary poly [2- methoxy -5- (2- ethylhexyloxy) - 1,4 -phenylenevinylene] MEH-PPV and poly (9,9-di-n-octylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl) (PFO) hole conducting polymers were used to fabricate hybrid light emitting diodes in this work. Optoelectronic properties of the fabricated light emitting diodes were investigated. Zinc oxide emits light within a wide range in the visible region due to its near band edge and deep level emissions. Utilizing this property, violet-white light emitting diodes were fabricated and characterized. Moreover, to take advantage over the responsivity of zinc oxide to ultraviolet light, ultraviolet photodetectors utilizing hydrothermally grown zinc oxide nanowires were fabricated. Single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) thin films were used as transparent electrodes for the photodetectors. Optoelectronic properties of the transparent and flexible devices were investigated. A high on-off current ratio around 260000 and low decay time about 16 seconds were obtained. Results obtained in this thesis reveal the great potential of the use of solution grown zinc oxide nanowires in various optoelectronic devices that are flexible and transparent.

Oxide nanowire arrays are playing an important role in energy sciences nowadays, including energy harvesting, energy storage, and power management. By utilizing a wet chemical growth method, we demonstrated the capabilities of synthesizing density controlled vertical ZnO nanowire arrays on a general substrate, optimizing the aspect ratio of the vertical ZnO nanowire arrays guided by a statistical method, epitaxially growing patterned vertical ZnO nanowire arrays on inorganic substrates, epitaxially growing patterned horizontal ZnO nanowire arrays on non-polar ZnO substrates, and the lift-off of the horizontal ZnO nanowire arrays onto general flexible substrates. In addition, single crystalline PbZrxTi1-xO3 (PZT) nanowire arrays were epitaxially grown on conductive and nonconductive substrates by hydrothermal decomposition. Beyond that, based on the as-synthesized ZnO nanowire arrays, we demonstrated multilayered three dimensionally integrated direct current and alternating current nanogenerators. By integrating a ZnO nanowire based nanogenerator with a ZnO nanowire based nanosensor, we demonstrated solely ZnO nanowire based self-powered nanosystems. Also, utilizing a commercial full-wave bridge rectifier, we rectified the alternating output charges of the nanogenerator based on PZT nanowire arrays, and the rectified charges were stored into capacitors, which were later discharged to light up a laser diode (LD). In addition, blue/near-ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LED) composed of ordered ZnO nanowire arrays on p-GaN wafers were presented.