A simple route to scalable fabrication of perfectly ordered ZnO nanorod arrays

Abstract

ZnO nanorod arrays with perfect order and uniformity were prepared using a simple, low-cost, commonly available and scalable nanosphere lithography for patterning gold catalyst particles and a successive bottom-up growth technique in a tube furnace chemical vapor deposition system. Each rod in the arrays had perfect surface facets, sharp edges and uniform size. For all of the rods, their sides were oriented the same. This bottom-up assembly method may accelerate the use of ZnO nanorods in real device applications.

Doping control of Cu in pH-tuned hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanowires

“…3a. XRD patterns of all samples demonstrated the hexagonal wurzite structures and the most intense peak around 34.4 • indicate the NWs growth preferential orientation on the [0 0 0 1] direction [15,16]. Furthermore, no additional peaks are founded from Cu derived secondary phase such as cupric oxide [17], cuprous oxide [18], and metallic copper [19] within the detection limit.…”

A catalyst-free and facile route to periodically ordered and c-axis aligned ZnO nanorod arrays on diverse substrates

“…Consequently many of the reports dealing with ordered and aligned high temperature deposited arrays use selective positioning of catalysts such as gold to control the nanorod positioning, 8,[22][23][24]28,29 while relying on epitaxial matching between the substrate and the deposited material to achieve nanorod alignment. This limits the choice of substrates to those that have sufficiently close epitaxial matching to achieve alignment, while the presence of a catalyst can lead to both nanowire contamination as well as changes in morphology which can be detrimental for applications such as field emission where sharp facet edges may be crucial to performance.…”

Catalytic growth of hexagonally aligned ZnO nanorods

“…Therefore, it is of great interest to produce separated nanorods perpendicular to the substrate on controlled positions with adjustable length and diameter, having at the same time a high crystalline quality. While the latter properties depend on growth conditions, control of the nanorod position can be achieved by prepatterning the substrate with electron beam lithography [9,10], photolithography [11], laser interference lithography [12], nanosphere lithography [13][14][15], nanoimprint lithography [16], or using a deposition mask during evaporation of a growth catalyst [17].…”