Synthesis of Copper Oxide Nanoparticles by Activated Reactive Evaporation Method

Abstract

The present study reviews various synthesis techniques for preparing single-phase Cu2O nanoparticles. The ‘nanoparticle route’ results in the growth stable semiconductor materials via the size-induced stabilization at nanodimension. In comparison to other techniques, activated reactive evaporation (ARE) method has an excellent parametric control to obtain the nanoparticles in a wide size range. The size-dependent optical, structural and electronic properties of Cu2O nanoparticles prepared by ARE method have been discussed in detail. Increase in ionic nature of the Cu2O lattice and a surface-modified thin CuO shell surrounded Cu2O core stabilizes the Cu2O phase. High-energy heavy ion irradiation has been used to modify the nanocrystalline characteristics of the Cu2O nanophase without destroying nanoparticle nature. These results show that Cu2O nanoparticles based Schottky and heterojunction will be stable to yield better photovoltaic performance.