Growth of Thin Sheet Assembled Hierarchical ZnO Nanostructures

Boxiang Jia,Weina Jia,Jing Wang,Fengyu Qu,Xiang Wu

doi:10.1155/2012/796815

Boxiang Jia, Weina Jia + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/796815

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Abstract

Hierarchical ZnO nanostructures assembled from nanosheets are obtained through a facile hydrothermal route. The structure and morphology of the resultant products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The experimental results indicated that the as-synthesized ZnO nanosheets have an average thickness of approximately 50 nm. The possible mechanism for hierarchical ZnO nanostructures has been discussed in detail, and it was found that sulfur powder plays a critical role in the morphology of the products. Room temperature photoluminescence property of the hierarchical ZnO nanostructures shows an ultraviolet emission peak at 385 nm.

Highlights

In the past decades, enormous attention has been paid to synthesize semiconductor metal oxides due to their wide application potentials in gas sensors [1,2,3,4], photocatalysts [5,6,7,8], luminescent materials [9,10,11,12], and solar cells [13]
The morphology and microstructure of the samples were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM, Hitachi4800), transmission electron microscope (TEM, JEOL2010)
Low-magnification SEM image (Figure 1(a)) presents the overall morphology of the as-synthesized samples, clearly observing that as-prepared samples consisted of many nanosheets

Summary

Introduction

Enormous attention has been paid to synthesize semiconductor metal oxides due to their wide application potentials in gas sensors [1,2,3,4], photocatalysts [5,6,7,8], luminescent materials [9,10,11,12], and solar cells [13]. As one of the important semiconducting metal oxides, ZnO with a wide bandgap energy of 3.37 eV has been extensively studied and applied In these applications, it is well-known that the performance is greatly influenced by the structure and morphology of ZnO materials. Wang et al prepared hollow ZnO hierarchical superstructures through a simple approach and investigated the optical properties of the ZnO superstructures [22]. Zhou’s group synthesized hierarchically porous ZnO nanosheets from a hydrothermal approach [23]. Wang and his coworkers synthesized ZnO hierarchically porous structures with the assistance of glycine, Na2SO4, and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) [24]. The spectrum presents an ultraviolet emission peak at 385 nm, revealing an excellent optical quality

Experimental Details

Results and Discussion

Conclusion