Spontaneous Electrochemical Synthesis of Morphologically Controlled 1D ZnO Structure with O ∕ Zn Composition Ratio Dependent Photoluminescences

Abstract

Spontaneous electrochemical synthesis of one-dimensional zinc oxide (1D ZnO) nanostructure from Zn anodes in an electrochemical cell is preliminarily demonstrated. By varying the discharged current up to , a larger amount of composites with few quantity of nucleation sites are obtained to promote an anisotropic growth of 1D ZnO nanostructure. The morphology and the size-controlled 1D ZnO structure can achieve a larger scale than others by a inducing larger quantity of near the nucleation site to promote the quick reaction. Such a reaction provides a strong and distinct narrow photoluminescent spectrum for the synthesized ZnO with (100) wurtzite structure with well crystallized and expanding grain. The room temperature photoluminescence and X-ray energy-dispersive spectra indicate that the composition-ratio varied ZnO with a zinc-rich condition as well as relatively low composition ratio is preferably obtained in KOH aqueous solution at high discharged current. Our results elucidate that the significantly decreased defect-related luminescence and enhanced bandgap UV emission is controllable via the tunable discharged current and reactive time induced optimization on the quantity of and precursors.