Sintering of ZnO pressed powder under Ar flow at temperatures between 1250 and 1300 • C leads to the formation of elongated microstructures and nanostructures, with different morphologies, on the sample surface. Rods and needles with cross-sectional dimensions ranging from tens of nanometres to several tens of microns and up to hundreds of microns in length are obtained. In an advanced stage of growth, nanoneedles are frequently arranged in bundles, forming the walls of tubes with different cross-sectional dimensions. In addition, microcombs and microfeathers consisting of well oriented nanoneedles are observed. Cathodoluminescence (CL) in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) has been used to characterize the structures grown. The formation of the elongated structures causes spectral changes, in particular an enhancement of the green-orange luminescence. High CL emission from the internal surface of the tubes has been observed.

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Electrophoretic deposition of palladium nanoparticles prepared by the reverse micelle technique onto InP substrates is addressed. We demonstrate that the substrate pre-deposition treatment and the deposition conditions can extensively influence the morphology of the deposited palladium nanoparticle films. Schottky diodes based on these films show notably high values of the barrier height and of the rectification ratio giving evidence of a small degree of the Fermi level pinning. Moreover, electrical characteristics of these diodes are exceptionally sensitive to the exposure to gas mixtures with small hydrogen content.

Highly rectifying semimetal graphite/ZnO Schottky diodes with a low-ideality-factor (1.08 at 300 K) were investigated by temperature-dependent current-voltage measurements. The current transport was dominated by thermionic emission between 300 and 420 K and the extracted barrier height followed the Schottky-Mott relation. A Richardson constant (A** = 0.272 A cm−2K−2) extracted from the Richardson plot shows nearly linear characteristics in the temperature range 300–420 K.