High-Yield Synthesis and Properties of Symmetrical Comb-Like ZnO Nanostructures on Aluminum Foil Substrate

Abstract

Highly-symmetrical well-crystallized comb-like ZnO nanostructures were grown in a very large-quantity on the aluminum foil via non-catalytic thermal evaporation method by using metallic zinc powder in the presence of oxygen at low temperature of 440 degrees C. Detailed morphological investigations revealed that the as-grown combs are made with a ribbon-like stem and aligned nanorod/nanowire arrays attached uniformly and nicely along one side of the ribbon-like stem. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) revealed that the as-grown nanocombs are crystalline and possessing a wurtzite hexagonal phase. The optical properties were observed by room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) and Raman-scattering which exhibited good optical properties for the as-grown products. A plausible growth mechanism has also been proposed for the formation of highly symmetrical comb-like ZnO nanostructures.

Synthesis of ZnO comb-like nanostructures for high sensitivity $$\hbox {H}_{2}$$ H 2 S gas sensor fabrication at room temperature

“…Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures have attracted considerable attention due to their wide band gap of 3.37 eV at room temperature and a high exciton binding energy of 60 meV. A variety of ZnO nanostructures, nanowires [1,2], nanorods [3,4], nanoribbons [5], nanorings [6], nanohelices [7], nanotetrapods [8], nanoflowers [9] and nanocombs [10,11] have been discovered. Among them, ZnO nanocombs consisting of a ribbon and an array of parallel nanorods perpendicular to the ribbon are of interest for many applications such as the optical polarizer and grating [12], dye-sensitized solar cells [13], biosensors for glucose detection [14] and gas sensors [15].…”