ZnO nanowires were mass produced using a physical vapor deposition approach. The ZnO nanowire monocrystallites have an average diameter around 60 nm and length up to a few micrometers. The unidirectional growth of the ZnO nanowires was controlled by the conventional vapor-liquid-solid mechanism. Intensive UV light emission peaked around 3.27 eV was observed at room temperature, which was assigned to emission from free exciton under low excitation intensity. The observed room temperature UV emission was ascribed to the decrease in structure defects as compared to bulk ZnO materials, and in particularly to the size effect in the ZnO wires.

We report large-scale synthesis of silica nanowires (SiONWs) using an excimer laser ablation method. Silica was produced in the form of amorphous nanowires at a diameter of ∼15 nm and a length up to hundreds micrometers. The SiONWs emit stable and high brightness blue light at energies of 2.65 and 3.0 eV. The intensity of the emission is two orders of magnitude higher than that of porous silicon. The SiONWs may have potential applications in high-resolution optical heads of scanning near-field optical microscope or nanointerconnections in future integrated optical devices.

We report the large-scale synthesis of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) using a simple but effective approach. High purity SiNWs of uniform diameters around 15 nm were obtained by sublimating a hot-pressed silicon powder target at 1200 °C in a flowing carrier gas environment. The SiNWs emit stable blue light which seems unrelated to quantum confinement, but related to an amorphous overcoating layer of silicon oxide. Our approach can be used, in principle, as a general method for synthesis of other one-dimensional semiconducting, or conducting nanowires.

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