SYNTHESIS OF WELL-ALIGNED ZnO NANOWIRES WITHOUT CATALYSTS

Abstract. Well-aligned ZnO nanowires were synthesized by thermal evaporation method using c-oriented ZnO thin films as substrate without any catalysts or additives. The synthesized nanowires have two typical average diameters: 60 nm in majority and 120 nm in minority. The ZnO nanowires are about 4 mm in length and well aligned along the normal direction of the substrate. Most of the ZnO nanowires are single crystalline with a hexagonal structure and grow along the [001] direc-tion. Photoluminescence spectrum shows that the ZnO nanowires have a single strong ultravio-let emission at 380 nm, indicating that the ZnO nanowire arrays can be used in optoelectronic devices. 1