Aqueous-phase synthesis of single crystal ZnO nanobolts

Abstract

This work describes a simple aqueous-phase synthesis of single-crystal ZnO nanobolts with sizes of 250nm by reacting Zn(NO3)2 with octylamine. The synthesized ZnO nanobolts exhibit a hierarchical structure consisting of two well-defined hexagonal nanorods of different sizes. In a study of the growth behavior of the ZnO nanobolts, we observed that aggregates of around 600nm in size became single-crystal ZnO nanobolts with sizes of 250nm. We also investigated the influence of reaction temperature and Zn(NO3)2 concentration on the synthesis, demonstrating that these experimental factors were critical in terms of the size, morphology, and aggregation of ZnO nanobolts.