Effect of intense pulsed light on hydrothermally grown ZnO nanowires

Abstract

Hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanowires has been of great interest as it allows the use of organic substrates for flexible electronics applications. However, there are drawbacks on the growth technique as it is known to introduce defects in the nanowires. In this work, the use of intense pulsed light on hydrothermally grown ZnO nanowires on polyimide substrate was performed to enhance the physical and electronic properties of the nanomaterials. Such photonic annealing technique offers a rapid and effective improvement in material properties and importantly it is suitable for use on a wide variety of organic substrates, which are vital for flexible electronics.

Flexographic Printing Contributions in Transistors Fabrication

“…[ 13 ] These processes are usually performed by thermal annealing for 10 min, [ 15 ] or within seconds using UV treatment, [ 24 ] and photonic annealing. [ 25 ] Flexographic printing allows users to utilize any extra units after post‐treatment, such as cutting units, functionalization units, or any other modification units based on the users’ requirements.…”

“…Such defects, acting as charge traps, could hinder the charge flow between source and drain electrodes, and they seem to be linked with the interface roughness. [ 25,51 ] To drastically reduce these defects, high‐temperature annealing is required which might damage the low‐glass transition substrates. Accordingly, an alternative strategy would be using photonic annealing which uses an xenon flash lamp to anneal samples within microseconds without damaging the underlying substrates.…”

“…Alternative annealing techniques such as photonic annealing can be used, which proved useful in reducing the level of defects in metal oxide semiconducting materials within a very short period of time. [ 25 ] Accordingly, it is possible to conclude that with respect to material printing, further research needs to be carried out to examine the suitability of flexography printable materials.…”

Glassy carbon manufacture using rapid photonic curing

“…Photonic curing is a recently developed alternative technology to the conventional convection methods which currently sees most use in the drying and sintering of printed or coated thin films [30][31][32][33][34][35]. Photonic curing uses xenon lamps to rapidly pulse high-intensity light, transferring a high energy density to the surface of an object [30].…”

“…In this case, no inert atmosphere is required as the energy delivery is faster than rate of copper oxidation. Another application is sintering silver-based inks to improve the conductivity [31] or to improve the electronic properties of ZnO nano-wires [35]. This method is most suited to surface treatment and is therefore applied to coatings on a carrier material rather than bulk materials.…”