Synthesis of crossed twin disks of ZnO and its growth mechanism

Abstract

Crossed twin disks of zinc oxide were fabricated by the vapor-phase transport method using a mixture of zinc oxide, indium oxide, and graphite powders as the source materials. The obtained nanostructure consisted of two crossed hexagonal disks, where the size of the disks was about 2.5 μm in diagonal and 300 nm in thickness. XRD result indicated that the as-obtained samples were well-crystallized wurtzite hexagonal ZnO nanostructures. Photoluminescence (PL) properties of the ZnO microdisks was characterized by fluorescent spectroscope with 250 nm picosecond LED. In the proposed growth mechanism, indium played the role of the doping element in the formation of special nucleation habits, which led to the crossed growth of the nanodisks. It is anticipated that this type of ZnO nanodisks would have application potentials in various types of nanodevices, such as light emitters and sensors, information storage devices, transducers, etc.