The Influence of Various Reactants in the Growth Solution on the Morphological and Structural Properties of ZnO Nanorods

Abstract

In the current work, the effect of three different Zinc (Zn) salts as reactants precursors in the growth solution on the characteristic properties of the Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods (NRs) was investigated and reported. High quality hexagonal ZnO NRs have been grown on the glass-slide substrates via the chemical-bath deposition (CBD) approach at 90 ºC. The radio-frequency sputtering (RF) technique has been used to coat the 150 nm of ZnO nano-seed layer over the whole glass-slide substrates. The Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), the Energy-dispersive characterization (EDX), and the X-ray diffraction (XRD) characterizations have been used to characterize and examination of the morphological, chemical compositional, and structural characteristics with ZnO hexagonal-wurtzite structure of the NRs. The used zinc salts were Zinc-nitrate Hexahydrate (ZNH), Zinc-acetate (ZA), and Zinc-chloride (ZC). The FESEM and XRD results indicated that the change in types of Zinc salts with Methenamine as reactants precursors in the growth (deposition) solution have a remarkable and significant impact on the surface topography (morphology) characteristics and structural characteristics of synthesized ZnO NRs. The average size and average length of the grown ZnO NRs were in the range of (91-529) nm and (1008-3189) nm, respectively. The high aspect ratio was obtained of ZnO NRs synthesized from Zinc-nitrate Hexahydrate salt and was about 11. The highest growth rate was investigated ZnO NRs synthesized from Zinc-chloride salt and was about 17.716 nm/min. The average crystalline size of synthesized ZnO nanorods was in the range (48.35-56.06) nm