Effect of lattice strain on nanomaterials in energy applications: A perspective on experiment and theory

Nanostructured semiconducting materials such as nanoparticles, quantum dots, nanowires, nanorods, nanotubes, nanobelts, nanoribbons, nanosheets, nanolayers, nanofilms, etc have gained tremendous attention within the past decade due to their fascinating physical properties and potential technological applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. Semiconducting materials are able to be altered with strain-inducing from tunable sizes and shapes due to quantum confinement effects. Lattice strain is found to be very useful as well as very economical methods for improving the performance of energy devices by modifying band structure of nanostructured materials. The use of strain in design of nanostructured semiconducting materials is now a standard technique for modulating their electronic structures to enhance both electron and hole mobilities. There are mainly three effects of strain on nanostructures: (i) electronic band modulation, (ii) buckling, and (iii) phase transformations. In this review, we mainly focus on both experimental and theoretical achievements for effect of strain in nanostructured materials. Finally, the review is concluded with perspectives regarding the effect of strain in low dimensional nanostructured semiconducting materials, particularly zero-, one-, and two-dimensional nanostructures in future.