In this work, we reported a comparative study of ZnO thin films grown on quartz glass and sapphire (001) substrates through magnetron sputtering and high-temperature annealing. Firstly, the ZnO thin films were deposited on the quartz glass and sapphire (001) substrates in the same conditions by magnetron sputtering. Afterwards, the sputtered ZnO thin films underwent an annealing process at 600 °C for 1 h in an air atmosphere to improve the quality of the films. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet-visible spectra, photoluminescence spectra, and Raman spectra were used to investigate the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of the both as-received ZnO thin films. The ZnO thin films grown on the quartz glass substrates possess a full width of half maximum value of 0.271° for the (002) plane, a surface root mean square value of 0.50 nm and O vacancies/defects of 4.40% in the total XPS O 1s peak. The comparative investigation reveals that the whole properties of the ZnO thin films grown on the quartz glass substrates are comparable to those grown on the sapphire (001) substrates. Consequently, ZnO thin films with high quality grown on the quartz glass substrates can be achieved by means of magnetron sputtering and high-temperature annealing at 600 °C.

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In this work, we report the self-assembly of ZnO nanodots on the glass substrates by a sol-gel method. Firstly, the precursor solution consisted of zinc acetate and the solvent of ethylene glycol or propylene glycol is employed to fabricate precursor thin film by spin coating. Secondly, the as-grown precursor thin film is annealed at a low temperature to form the self-assembled ZnO nanodots. The effects of solvent type, precursor solution concentration and annealing time on the morphologies of the self-assembled ZnO nanodots were investigated. In addition, the self-assembly evolution of the ZnO nanodots is proposed in order to helping people to understand the formation of the nanodots by mean of sol-gel method.

This work reports the fabrication of ZnO@MoS2 core−shell micro/nanomaterials and their photocatalytic performances. First, the ZnO@MoS2 core−shell micro/nanorods heterostructures were grown by a two-step, hydrothermal method. Second, X−ray diffraction, scanning−electron microscopy, Raman spectra, and UV−visible spectra were applied to confirm and characterize the ZnO@MoS2 core−shell micro/nanorods. Third, methylene blue was employed to investigate the photocatalytic performance of the ZnO@MoS2 core−shell micro/nanorods heterostructures. It was found that the shape of the MoS2 shell layer depended on the growth time. The shell layer was composed of MoS2 nanoparticles before the growth time of 6h and then turned into MoS2 nanosheets. It was also found that the photocatalytic performance was significantly affected by the growth time of the MoS2 nanosheets. When the growth time of the MoS2 nanosheets was between 6 and 10 h, ZnO@MoS2 core−shell heterostructures grown for 6 h exhibited a best photocatalytic efficiency value of 69.24% after 3 h catalysis.

In this work, we report the ZnO@MoS2 composite materials prepared by a hydrothermal method, and the effect of annealing temperature on the photocatalytic performance of ZnO@MoS2 composite materials. It is found that annealing temperature plays an important role in the formation of MoS2 surface morphology, resulting in the dense films and a reduction of nanostructure nummber and active sites by enhancing temperature. Furthermore, ZnO@MoS2 composite materials annealed at 50 oC possess a higher photocatalytic degradation efficiency of 62.88% on methylene blue solution compared with ZnO materials or other samples.