Si is a promising anode material for Li storage due to its high theoretical specific capacity surpassing 4200 Ah/kg. Si based anodes exhibit an extreme instability upon electrochemical incorporation of Li given the accompanied large volume expansion of about 400%. We show innovative anode assemblies composed of a forest of free standing Si nanowires conformally integrated on carbon meshes. The morphology of silicon nanowires allows a volume expansion and compression lowering strain incorporation. In this paper, we demonstrate the utilization of SiNW grown on top of a current collector made of a carbon fiber network. This leads to an increase of stability of Si with a remaining effective capacitance above 2000 Ah/kg(Si) after 225 full charge/discharge cycles. This is significantly better compared to previous results shown in literature. The anodes are fabricated by a simple and inexpensive method promising for a transfer into industrial integration.

Reconfigurable nanowire transistors provide the operation of unipolar p-type and n-type FETs freely selectable within a single device. The enhanced functionality is enabled by controlling the currents through two individually gated Schottky junctions. Here we analyze the impact of the Schottky barrier height on the symmetry of Silicon nanowire RFET transfer characteristics and their performance within circuits. Prospective simulations are carried out, indicating that germanium nanowire based RFETs of the same dimensions will show a distinctly increased performance, making them a promising material solution for future reconfigurable electronics.