Growth of ZnO Nanorod Arrays on Flexible Substrates: Effect of Precursor Solution Concentration

Abstract

We report a low-temperature aqueous solution growth of uniformly aligned ZnO nanorod arrays on flexible substrates. The substrate is Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) film coated on polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Solutions with five different concentrations of the precursors with equimolar Zinc Nitrate and Hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) in distilled water were prepared to systematically study the effect of precursor solution concentration on the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods. It was concluded that the precursor concentration have great influence on the morphology, crystal quality, and optical property of ZnO nanorods. The diameter, density, and orientation of the nanorods are dependent on the precursor solution concentration. X-ray diffraction and micro-Raman spectroscopy showed that the ZnO nanorods with the highest concentration of 50 mM were highly aligned and have the highest level of surface coverage. It was also found that the diameter and length of the nanorods increases upon increasing precursor solution concentration. This is the first systematic investigation of studying the effect of precursor solution concentration on the quality of ZnO nanorods grown on ITO/PET substrates by low-temperature solution method. We believe that our work will contribute to the realization of flexible organic-inorganic hybrid solar cell based on ZnO nanorods and conjugated polymer.

Effect of Ga-modified layer on flexible hydrogen sensor using ZnO nanorods decorated by Pd catalysts

“…Several groups developed ZnO nanorods (NRs) on flexible substrates via a seed layer such as ITO-coated PET [18,20] and ZnO-seeded PET [17,19]. Further, the effects of processing conditions such as concentration of the precursors [18], deposition time [16,17], sputtering conditions [13], as well as structural [17,18,20] and optical properties [17,20] were also investigated. Among all the approaches, the aqueous solution method has the advantages of simplicity, low cost, low growth temperature, and easy coating of large surfaces.…”

“…Many approaches have been proposed and developed for the deposition of ZnO films on polymer substrates, such as radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering [3,13], pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [14], dual plasma-enhanced metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (DPEMOCVD) [15], ion-exchange techniques [11], solution-based methods [16][17][18], and chemical bath deposition (CBD) [19]. Several groups developed ZnO nanorods (NRs) on flexible substrates via a seed layer such as ITO-coated PET [18,20] and ZnO-seeded PET [17,19].…”

Analysis of junction properties of gold–zinc oxide nanorods-based Schottky diode by means of frequency dependent electrical characterization on textile

“…ZnO also possesses self-organized growth properties and due to this ZnO nanostructures can be grown on any substrate such as GaN, SiC, Si, glass, plastic/fiber, paper and textile fabric etc. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. This property is advantageous to facilitate ZnO nanostructures as a material for development of simple and cost effective nanodevices on cheap substrates.…”

Annealing Heat Treatment of ZnO Nanoparticles Grown on Porous Si Substrate Using Spin-Coating Method

“…ZnO is a wide band gap semiconductor with excellent chemical stability and high exciton binding energy [1]. These properties make it widely used in optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, gas sensor, UV sensor, LED applications, and so on [2][3][4][5][6]. In order to synthesis ZnO, various methods were applied such as laser deposition [4], RF magnetron sputtering [3,5], mistatomization [7], and sol-gel deposition [2,6,8,9].…”