Review of Recent Advances of ZnO Nanowires Based Sensors

Abstract

This paper presents the recent advances of the ZnO nanowires based sensors. ZnO has gained a substantial interest in the research areas of the wide band gap semiconductors due to its unique electrical, optical and structural properties. ZnO is considered as one of the major candidates for several electronic and photonic applications. ZnO is considered as a potential contender in optoelectronic applications such as solar cells, surface acoustic wave devices, and ultraviolet (UV) emitters. ZnO as a nanostructured material exhibits many advantages for nanodevices. ZnO nanostructured material has the ability to absorb the UV radiation. ZnO nanowires have received a considerable attention due to the morphological changes with doping. ZnO nanowires are very attractive material for nano-sensors due to their properties induced by the quantum size effects. Recently, ZnO nanowires based devices have gained much attention due to their various potential applications in nanoelectronics devices including gas sensors, nanogenerators, and nano-lasers. The recent aspects of ZnO nanowires based sensors devices are presented and discussed.

Laser-Induced Au Catalyst Generation for Tailored ZnO Nanostructure Growth

“…Regarding the ever-growing demand for new functional materials, semiconductor structures in the micro- and nanoscale remain of high interest in the research community. Due to their physical properties e.g., wide band gap [ 1 ] (~3.4 eV) and large exciton binding energy [ 2 ] of 60 meV, ZnO nanostructures are promising candidates for future electronic [ 3 ] or optoelectronic [ 4 ] devices as in UV-lasers [ 5 ], solar cells [ 6 ] or sensoric [ 7 , 8 ] applications. The generation of diverse ZnO nano-morphologies may be achieved by both wet [ 9 , 10 ] and dry [ 11 , 12 , 13 ] methods.…”

Tailoring ZnO nanowire crystallinity and morphology for label-free capturing of extracellular vesicles

“…5 When ZnO nanowires are hydrothermally synthesized, they are single crystals, and as a result of their narrow diameter, the nanowires have an extremely high surface area allowing highly sensitive interaction with various substances. [6][7][8][9] This high surface-to-volume ratio makes the nanowires very sensitive to changes in surface chemistry and permits rapid interaction with comparatively small sizes of biomolecules including extracellular vesicles (EVs) and nucleic acids giving rise to their prevalence in isolation and detection technology development. [10][11][12][13][14][15] The physical phenomena in the radial and axial directions and the high surface-to-volume ratios of the nanowires have been controlled and that has led to an explosion of applications utilizing these structures.…”