Energy Band Diagram Modeling and Experiments to Explore the Effects of Piezoelectric Materials in Electrochemical Heterostructures

Modern technology works by controlling the flow of mobile charges through materials. There are principally two sources of control used today: 1) electric fields (depletion regions), 2) discontinuities in allowed electronic states at hetrointerfaces. Piezoelectric materials are capable of sustaining electric fields within themselves even in the absence of both heterointeraces and outside work done on the system. Within this thesis I model the effect that piezoelectrics have on the energetic landscape at heterointerfaces. I also explore the possibility of using piezoelectric materials directly to drive electrochemical reactions, and how the piezoelectric effect might be used to change the rate of electrochemical reactions.