Vertically aligned cuprous oxide nanorods can currently be grown only with the assistance of anodic aluminum oxide membranes (AAOs), which are time-consuming to prepare and expensive to purchase. This research focuses on developing a simple and inexpensive 'nanocasting' method for copying the morphology of a nanostructured film and replicating that morphology for different materials. Starting from zinc oxide nanorods, which can be easily grown using hydrothermal methods, we are able to create a polymer template and electrochemically grow cuprous oxide into the template with the same morphology as the original ZnO nanorods. The polymer membrane is easily removed leaving hexagonal cuprous oxide nanorods, which have good electrochemical contact to the electrode substrate and are photocatalytically active within prototype regenerative solar cells.

Electrochemical growth of copper(I) oxide nanorods on F-SnO2 substrates via polymer templating

247th National Meeting (2014)

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