Phenomenological modeling of light transmission through ZnO nanowires arrays (Conference Presentation)

Abstract : Among alternative nanomaterials for energy related photonic applications, one-dimensional semiconductor nanowires are of a great interest due to their physical properties coming from electronic or quantum confinement. In particular, ZnO nanowires (or nanorods) has been widely investigated since ZnO has many unique properties such as wide direct band gap, large exciton binding energy and relatively high refractive index. Large optical gain also makes ZnO a well suited material for energy transfer in hybrid systems and especially optical energy transfer. There are however two issues remaining to be addressed, one is related to the control in size and dispersion in nanowires array and the other is related to the modeling of nanowires arrays. In this study, we report on a theoretical study on ZnO nanowires, in order to reach a better understanding of the mechanisms that govern the light propagation in nanowires arrays. A phenomenological model has been developed and discussed. The model is able to describe the experimentally measured light transmission nanowires arrays. A slab of nanospheres and rough layers with thickness waviness were combined to simplify the nanowires structure description. This phenomenological description was proved to be feasible by fitting the experimental data. As a conclusion, light transmitted by randomly distributed nanowires can be explained by the combination of Mie theory and a rough Fresnel reflection at the interfaces.