The fabrication of zinc oxide nanorods and nanowires by solgel immersion methods

Abstract

The zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods (NRs) (4 hours) and nanowires (NWs) (12 and 24 hours) were synthesized on the magnesium ZnO (MgZnO) seed layer by using sol-gel immersion method. The ZnO NRs and NWs were characterized by FESEM, XRD, UV-Vis and four-point probe measurement. The FESEM images showed uniform, dense and vertically aligned structure. The smallest diameter observed in ZnO NWs (24 hours) in the range ∼ 47.6-99.2 nm. The XRD spectra also presented the c-axis growth of ZnO NRs and NWs. The ZnO NWs (24 hours) demonstrated higher transmittance and electrical conductivity of ∼77.8% and 2.6 × 10−1 S cm−1 as compared to ZnO NRs of 66.7% and 1.1 ×10−2 S cm−1, respectively. Therefore, the ZnO NWs (24 hours) showed a good structure to be applied in solar cells and UV sensor applications.