Growth of ZnO rods on FTO electrodes by spray pyrolysis

Abstract

ZnO layers comprizing rods were deposited by chemical spray pyrolysis (CSP) method at 520 °C on different FTO (SnO2:F)/glass substrates using zinc chloride aqueous solutions. Substrates were purchased from different manufactures and differ by morphology, grain size and roughness of FTO electrode. FTO/glass substrates and ZnO layers grown on them were characterised with the help of XRD, AFM, high resolution SEM, EDX methods. The relationship between nanorod formation and substrate properties was studied. It was found that substrate roughness and grain size influence the ZnO rods formation. Deposition of rods (d=300 nm, L=1.4 μm) was successful on the FTO layers with grain sizes around 30–50 nm and roughness below 10 nm, whereas large-grained FTO (grain size > 130 nm) resulted in thick, low-aspect ratio crystals with diameter around 400 nm and length of about 400 nm.