Electrical transport and photovoltaic effects of core-shell CuO/C60 nanowire heterostructure

An organic/inorganic hybrid heterostructure consisting of p-type CuO nanowire core and n-type C-60 shell was fabricated and its electrical transport properties were studied for the first time. It was found that the devices with contacts on shell-shell show an ohmic behavior but the devices with contacts on core-shell forms a single p-n junction and display a rectifying behavior. Logarithmic current-voltage curves at various temperatures show that the tunneling transport plays a critical role in the electrical transport. Photovoltaic effects were observed in the core-shell contacted CuO/C-60 junctions under illumination. This work demonstrates that an inorganic/organic coaxial nanowire can provide potential in nanoelectronic devices and could further stack high density hybrid nanowires array as a renewable power source.