Anodic growth of copper oxide nanostructures in glow discharge

Abstract

Purpose: Application of plasma glow discharge to copper oxide nanostructure growth is studied. The simplicity of the proposed technique may be beneficial for the development of new plasma reactors for large-scale production of diverse metal oxide nanostructures. Design/methodology/approach: Copper sample was placed on anode of a setup designed to ignite plasma glow discharge. The proposed approach allows eliminating the negative effects of ion bombardment, like sputtering and generation of defects on a surface of the growing nanostructures, but preserves the advantages of thermal growth. The growth process was explained in terms of thermal processes interaction occurring on a surface of the anode with the glow discharge plasma. Findings: Plasma treatment resulted in generation of reach and diverse nanostructures that was confirmed by SEM images. Nanowire-like, flower-like, anemone-like nanostructures and nanodisks composed into the nanoassemblies are observed; the nanostructures are associated with microbabbles on CuO layer. These findings allow concluding about the possible implementation of the proposed method in industry. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation is conditioned by the lack of heat supplied to the anode, and absence of independent control of the heat and ion fluxes; thus, the additional heater should be installed under the anode in order to expand the nomenclature of the nanospecies in the future studies. Practical implications: High-productivity plasma process in copper oxide nanostructures synthesis was confirmed in this research. It may be applied for field emitter and supercapacitor manufacturing. Originality/value: Oxide nanostructure synthesis is conducted by use of a simple and well-known glow discharge technique in order to expand the production yield and diversity of nanostructure obtained in the processes of thermal growth.