Growth of ZnSe Nanospirals with Bending Mediated by Lomer−Cottrell Sessile Dislocations through Varying Pressure

Abstract

ZnSe nanospirals, with zinc blende structured building blocks exhibiting unconventional mosaic configuration, were successfully fabricated via a two-stage growth process, in which abrupt variation of reaction pressure was introduced. In-plane bending, with remarkable morphological difference from the commonly reported nanorings or nanohelixes induced by spontaneous polarization in II-VI semiconductors, has been observed, which can be mainly attributed to existence of numerous Lomer-Cottrell sessile dislocations with edge components. Investigations on morphological evolutions by applying different reaction pressure and growth time in the second stage imply that the formation of nanospirals is closely related to the pressure variation. The results may provide useful information for further understanding the strain release mechanism and mechanical response of ZnSe at the nanoscale.

Polarity continuation and frustration in ZnSe nanospirals

“…Figure 1d shows several stacking faults on the {111} planes intersecting stacking faults on the {−111} planes, forming the so-called Z-shape faulted dipoles. Lomer-Cottrell partial dislocations would form at the intersection points, as indicated by the red arrows, which are reported to be responsible for the spiral-like morphology of the ZnSe nanospirals 17 . Figure 1e also shows many stacking faults on the {111} planes.…”

“…The growth process was divided into two stages during which the reaction pressure was varied. Detailed growth information has been published elsewhere 17 . Slight variations of the growth parameters result in quite different morphologies 29 30 31 .…”

Nanospiral Formation by Droplet Drying: One Molecule at a Time

“…Nanorings have been generated by lithography (microcontact printing [ 18 ], electron beam [ 19 ], and AFM tips [ 20 ]), template-based synthesis (using droplets [ 21 ], viruses [ 22 ], and DNA [ 23 ]), self-assembly [ 24 - 27 ], selective dewetting on patterned surfaces [ 28 - 30 ], and evaporation-driven dewetting [ 27 , 31 - 33 ]. There have been fewer reports on nanospirals [ 34 - 37 ]. The scientific interests for nanorings range from quantum rings, whose connected geometry at the nanoscale can trap "persistent currents" [ 38 - 41 ], to biomimetic light-harvesting complexes [ 31 , 42 , 43 ] and DNA microarrays for high-throughput DNA mapping [ 44 , 45 ].…”

Fabrication and comparison of the photocatalytic activity of ZnSe microflowers and nanosheets

“…Therefore, it is difficult to judge the photocatalytic activity of micro/nanomaterials only from the size of micro/nanomaterials. In recent years, various morphologies and sizes ZnSe micro/nanostructures have been fabricated by a variety of methods, including quantum dots [11][12][13][14], nanoparticles [15], nanowires [16][17][18][19], nanosheets [20,21], microrods [22], nanobelts [23,24], nanospirals [25] nanotubes arrays [5,26], and microflowers [4,9,27,28]. However, these works were mainly focused on fabricating different dimensionality and size products rather than the photocatalytic properties of ZnSe micro/nanostructures.…”