Fast synthesis, morphology transformation, structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown by seed-free hydrothermal method

Abstract

A fast and low cost seed-free hydrothermal synthesis method to synthesize zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods with controllable morphology, size and structure has been developed. Ammonia is used to react with water to tailor the ammonium hydroxide concentration, which provides a continuous source of OH− for hydrolysis and precipitation of the final products. Hence, allowing ZnO nanorods to growth on large areas of metal (Au and Ag coated glass), p-type Si and organic flexible (PEDOT: PSS) substrates. Increasing the growth time, the morphology transforms from pencil-like to hexagonal shape rod-like morphology. Within one hour the length of the ZnO nanorods has reached almost 1 µm. The optical characteristics has shown that the grown ZnO nanorods are dominated by two emission peaks, one is in the UV range centered at 381 nm and other one with relatively high intensity appears in the visible range and centered at 630 nm. While the growth duration was increased from 2 h to 6 h, the optical band gap was observed to increase from 2.8 eV to 3.24 eV, respectively. This fast and low cost method is suitable for LEDs, UV-photodetector, sensing, photocatalytic, multifunctional devices and other optoelectronic devices, which can be fabricated on any substrates, including flexible and foldable substrates.