ZnO 1-D nanostructures: Low temperature synthesis and characterizations

Abstract

ZnO is one of the most important semiconductors having a wide variety of applications in photonic, field emission and sensing devices. In addition, it exhibits a wide variety of morphologies in the nano regime that can be grown by tuning the growth habit of the ZnO crystal. Among various nanostructures, oriented 1-D nanoforms are particularly important for applications such as UV laser, sensors, UV LED, field emission displays, piezoelectric nanogenerator etc. We have developed a soft chemical approach to fabricate well-aligned arrays of various 1-D nanoforms like nanonails, nanowires and nanorods. The microstructural and photoluminescence properties of all the structures were investigated and tuned by varying the synthesis parameters. Field emission study from the aligned nanorod arrays exhibited high current density and a low turn-on field. These arrays also exhibited very strong UV emission and week defect emission. These structures can be utilized to fabricate efficient UV LEDs.

A Review on Less-common Nanostructures

“…[142] Among a few reports on this nanoform, the palladium nanobricks could find extensive use in catalysis, surfaceenhanced Raman scattering and magnetic and opto-electronics because of their unique shapes and surface structure. [143] Almost all publications on nanonails ( Figure 17) or closely related nanobowlings ( Figure 18) are devoted to ZnO, having such applications as sensors for detection of hydrazine [144] and glycose, [145,146] or potential applications for UV laser, UV emitters, field emission displays, piezoelectric nanogenerator, [147,148] etc. ZnO nanonails were synthesized, in particular, by nanoparticle-assisted pulsed-laser ablation deposition, [149] thermal vapor transport and condensation method at a low temperature without a metal catalyst using pure Zn powders as raw material and O 2 /Ar powders as source gas [150] (zinc powder evaporation is an efficient way of synthesizing a wide range of high-quality ZnO nanostructures ( Figure 19) at relatively low temperature [151] ), or solvothermal approach using ethanol as the solvent (leading to various nanoforms, whose formation mechanism is shown in Figure 20).…”

Magnetic and optical properties of Mn-doped ZnO vertically aligned nanorods synthesized by hydrothermal technique

“…The obtained value of the plane spacing confirms that the as grown Mn doped ZnO nanorods have perfect hexagonal wurtzite lattice structure with the growth direction along the c-axis. 31 The inter planer spacing of (002) planes (d 002 ) of as grown Mn doped ZnO nanorods have been observed around ∼ 0.261 nm 32,33 along the c-axis of the as grown ZnO nanorods.…”

Optical and Structural Investigations of Manganese Doped ZnS/SiO2 Core-Shell Nanostructure

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Phase control of ZnS nanocrystals is critical to tune their physical properties to the appropriate ones. The wurtzite ZnS nanocrystal growth at low temperature (< 100 C) is the useful fabrication, however the most stable ZnS structure in nanoscale is the zinc blended (cubic) structure, and researchers have just begun exploring the low temperature synthesis of the wurtzite structure of ZnS.…”