Synthesizing Vertically Aligned Zinc Oxide Nanowires on Borosilicate Glass Using Vapor Trapping Approach

Abstract

We demonstrate the vertically well-aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires synthesized on amorphous borosilicate glass (BSG) via simple chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process with a vapor trapping approach. During the process, zinc precursor was put inside a glass vial with the vial’s opening was directed towards the BSG substrate, which is being placed downstream from the gas flow and approximately 30-40 mm from the precursor. The BSG substrates were coated with Nichrome (NiCr) and gold (Au) coating prior to the synthesis process. Vertically aligned nanowires with a high aspect ratio was found to be deposited in total operating pressure of 20-25 bar with an Oxygen flow rate range of 5-10 sccm and argon flow rate range of 30-50 sccm. This vapor trapping approach using BSG substrates provided a good alternative towards controllable growth of ZnO NWs on any much cheaper amorphous substrates for future development of low cost energy-converter heat cell devices based on ZnO nanowires.