Recent progress of one-dimensional ZnO nanostructured solar cells

One-dimensional (1D) ZnO nanostructures have widely been studied over the last decade, not only because of their rich morphologies produced by various methods, but also because of their wide applications in optics, electronics, piezoelectronics, sensing, etc. Particularly, as an environmental friendly material, 1D ZnO nanostructures have intensively been studied for clean and sustainable solar energy devices. This article gives a comprehensive overview of the progress made in the different types of 1D ZnO nanostructure solar cells. Herein the synthetic methods are not in the main focus and are summarized in the form of tables, rather we mainly emphasize the most exciting applications of 1D ZnO nanostructured solar cells, such as (2D and 3D) dye- and quantum dot-sensitized, bulk heterojunctions, p-n and Schottky junctions, and integrated devices. In the end we share our views related to the perspectives in this field. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.