Morphological Control and Photoluminescence of Zinc Oxide Nanocrystals

Abstract

Nanocrystals of the wide band gap semiconductor zinc oxide of controllable morphologies were synthesized by a simple thermal decomposition method. The predominating factor in determining the morphology (spheres, triangular prisms, and rods) was the solvent, selected on the basis of coordinating power. The nanoparticles were structurally analyzed, and the photoluminescence of each shape was compared. The intensity of the green band emission, common to many ZnO structures, was found to vary with morphology. The strongest green band intensity corresponded to the shape with the largest surface/volume ratio and could be attributed to surface oxygen vacancies. Control over the morphology of ZnO at the nanoscale is presented as a means to control the green band emission.

Synthesis, Self-assembly and Optoelectronic Properties of Monodisperse ZnO Quantum Dots

“…To the best of our knowledge, there have been many metal oxides nanoparticles, such as Fe 2 O 3 , NiO, Co 3 O 4 and ZnO [84][85][86][87], synthesized via thermal decomposition method. However, there are not many reports on synthesizing ZnO quantum dots with ultra small size [45][46][47][48][49][50]. Fabrication of ZnO QDs with an average size of 1-10nm by decomposing zinc salts have reported by Cozzoli et al ( Figure 3) [47].…”

“…The thermal decomposition of ZnO precursors could be taken place either in liquid or air environments. As for synthesis taken place in liquid environment, high temperature resistance solvents were needed, such as n-hexadecylamine (HDA), n-dodecylamine (DDA), tri-n-octylamine (TOA), 1-hexadecanol (HD), 1-octadecene (OD) and purified mineral oil [45][46][47], and Zn(CH 3 COO) 2 ·2H 2 O was used as precursors. Before putting Zn source into solvents, it was firstly dissolved in water or oleic acid (OA).…”

“…By far, various kinds of synthetic approaches have been realized in fabricating such small ZnO QDs, which can be roughly divided into chemical methods and physical methods. Chemical methods involves sol-gel method [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], hydrothermal growth [41][42][43][44], thermal decomposition [45][46][47][48][49][50], electrochemical method [51][52][53][54], while physical methods involves PLA or PLD [55][56][57][58][59], MOCVD [60][61][62][63], sputtering [64][65][66], FSP method [67][68][69][70] and VPT deposition [71,72]. At present, all the methods can be divided into two parts as follow:…”

SnP0.94 active material synthesized in high-boiling solvents for all-solid-state lithium batteries

“…9) In general, coordinating solvents affect the size and shape of obtained particles. 10) Oleylamine (OAm) is also widely used as a coordinating solvent. However, the synthesis of SnP 0.94 by changing coordinating solvents has not been investigated.…”

Control of nanocrystal surface defects for efficient charge extraction in polymer-ZnO photovoltaic systems

“…Since then, the use of DEZ has led to several reports on ZnO incorporated organic-inorganic hybrid photovoltaics. [7,[18][19][20] In addition to the above mentioned advantages, the non-formation of ZnO at room temperature compared to other zinc containing metallorganic precursors [21] as well as the possibility of forming a bicontinous network [7] makes the use of DEZ an attractive route towards forming hybrid organic/inorganic photovoltaic cells. In addition to changing the nature through which the acceptor phase is incorporated, recent investigations have also focused on the use of modified organic donors for inorganic acceptor (Table S1).…”