Face-selective tungstate ions drive zinc oxide nanowire growth direction and dopant incorporation

Jiangyang Liu,Benjarong Samransuksamer,Masaru Suzuki,Hiroyuki Yamashita ,Guozhu Zhang,Yoshinobu Baba,T Ohkubo ,Johnny C Ho,Masaki Kanai,Yuriko Aoki,Wataru Mizukami,Kazuki Nagashima,Takahiro Yasui ,Tetsuo Takahashi ,Takuro Hosomi,Yoshinori Miura,Xixi Zhao,Jun Uzuhashi,Yabai He ,Daiki Sakai,Takeshi Yanagida

doi:10.1038/s43246-020-00063-5

Abstract

Tailoring the elemental doping of inorganic nanowires remains an important challenge due to complex dopant incorporation pathways. Here we report that the face-selectivity of tungstate ions controls growth direction and dopant incorporation of hydrothermal zinc oxide nanowires. The introduction of tungstate ions on nanowire surface during synthesis unexpectedly enhances nucleation at sidewall left{ {10bar 10} right} planes, while dopant incorporation occurs only on (0001) planes. This conflicting face-selective behavior leads to inhomogeneous dopant distribution. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the face-selective behavior can be interpreted in terms of the effect of coordination structure of the tungstate ions on each zinc oxide crystal plane. In addition, we demonstrate a rational strategy to control the morphology and the elemental doping of tungsten-doped zinc oxide nanowires.

Highlights

Tailoring the elemental doping of inorganic nanowires remains an important challenge due to complex dopant incorporation pathways
We report the unusual face-selectivity of tungstate ion on growth direction and dopant incorporation of hydrothermal zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire
Systematic experiments and simulations reveal that tungstate ions (WO42−) face-selectively act as surfactant and dopant on different crystal planes according to their coordination structure

Summary

Introduction

Tailoring the elemental doping of inorganic nanowires remains an important challenge due to complex dopant incorporation pathways. We report the unusual face-selectivity of tungstate ion on growth direction and dopant incorporation of hydrothermal ZnO nanowire. A predictable model and a rational strategy to control over the morphology and the dopant distribution of hydrothermal ZnO nanowires are demonstrated.

Results

Conclusion