Abstract
This chapter examines the microstructure of the epitaxial growth of Cu
2
O on gold nano‐islands. The well‐crystallized columnar structure is meant to increase the hole collection by avoiding recombination at grain boundary defects as a means of increasing the efficiency. Gold is a good match for seeding growth of Cu
2
O because of their similar crystal structures and lattice sizes. Cu
2
O is primitive cubic with a lattice parameter of 0.427nm, and gold is FCC with a lattice parameter of 0.4079nm. Electrodeposition was used to deposit the films onto the superstrates in an experiment. The set‐up for this deposition consisted of a two electrode, single compartment electrolytic cell, where the working electrode was either the gold coated Fluorine doped Tin Oxide (FTO) coated glass or bare FTO coated glass. The grains grown using gold were significantly smaller and more uniform than those without, but the growth that did occur suggests that the growth is more controlled compared to the growth on just FTO.