Abstract
In this article, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures of different shapes were fabricated on silicon substrate. Well-aligned and long ZnO nanowire (NW) arrays, as well as leaf-like ZnO nanostructures (which consist of modulated and single-phase structures), were fabricated by a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method without the assistance of a catalyst. On the other hand, needle-like ZnO NW arrays were first fabricated with the CVD process followed by chemical etching of the NW arrays. The use of chemical etching provides a low-cost and convenient method of obtaining the needle-like arrays. In addition, the field emission properties of the different ZnO NW arrays were also investigated where some differences in the turn-on field and the field-enhancement factors were observed for the ZnO nanostructures of different lengths and shapes. It was experimentally observed that the leaf-like ZnO nanostructure is most suitable for field emission due to its lowest turn-on and threshold field as well as its high field-enhancement factor among the different synthesized nanostructures.
Highlights
One-dimensional (1-D) metallic oxide nanostructures have been extensively studied due to their numerous applications as basic building blocks in a variety of nanodevices
Morphology of the leaf-like indium-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures The crystal structures of the leaf-like indium-doped ZnO nanostructures were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements
The indium-doped leaf-like ZnO nanostructures, the well-aligned long ZnO NW arrays, and the needle-like arrays were synthesized on the Si substrates
Summary
One-dimensional (1-D) metallic oxide nanostructures have been extensively studied due to their numerous applications as basic building blocks in a variety of nanodevices Among those 1-D nanostructures, zinc oxide (ZnO) with a wide bandgap (3.37 eV) and a large exciton binding energy (60 meV) at room temperature has attracted a lot of attention in the last few years. Such 1-D ZnO wire-like arrays have acted as a vital candidate for applications in gas sensor [1], dye-sensitized solar cells [2], UV photodetectors [3,4], nanowire laser [5], light-emitting diodes [6], UV sensors [7], field-effect transistors [8], nanogenerators [9], field emission devices [10], and so on. This information could be useful for the application of the ZnO nanostructures as field emitters
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