Synthesis of zinc oxide nanostructures and comparison of their crystal quality

• Published in: Applied surface science 2018-12, Vol.461, p.190-195
• Main Authors: Mičová, Júlia, Buryi, Maksym, Šimek, Daniel, Drahokoupil, Jan, Neykova, Neda, Chang, Yu-Ying, Remeš, Zdeněk, Pop-Georgievski, Ognen, Svoboda, Jan, Im, Chan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 1-D ZnO nanowires (NWs); 3-D hedgehog-like ZnO; Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR); Scanning electron microscopy (SEM); X-ray diffraction (XRD); X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)
• ISSN: 0169-4332; 1873-5584
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2018.05.176

•1-D aligned nanowires and 3-D hedgehog-like ZnO.•Synthesis of different nanostructures of ZnO under identical reaction conditions.•Comparing the crystal quality of 1-D and 3-D nanostructures of ZnO. Nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO), as a semiconductor, is used as an alternative to TiO2 for the construction of hybrid solar cells. We studied two different nanostructures – nanowires (NWs) and hedgehog-like needle-clusters prepared by hydrothermal growth method. The morphological parameters were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) data for both samples confirmed wurtzite structure. The surface chemistry was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and paramagnetic defects were studied by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) technique. This analysis confirmed that both types nanostructures of ZnO achieve comparable quality in terms of structure and sample purity.