Recent advances in hybrid Cu2O-based heterogeneous nanostructures.

Hybrid Cu2O-based heterogeneous nanostructures possess novel synergistic properties that arise from the integrated interaction between the disparate components, thereby showing promising potential for various important applications including solar cells, carbon monoxide oxidation, photocatalysts, field emission, sensors, templates and so on. With the rapid progress in nanomaterials science and nanotechnology, hybrid Cu2O-based heterogeneous nanostructures with well-controlled compositions, shapes and sizes have been rationally designed and synthesized. This review attempts to summarize the important advances in the development of different types of hybrid Cu2O-based heterogeneous nanostructures, such as hybrid Cu2O-metal nanostructures, hybrid Cu2O-metal oxide nanostructures and hybrid Cu2O-carbon nanostructures. The correlations between the improved performances and interfacial structures of the hybrid Cu2O-based heterogeneous nanostructures are discussed based on some important and representative examples. Several key scientific issues and perspective research directions in this field are also given.