Manipulation of ZnO nanowire by low-temperature solution approach

A catalyst free, structure-induced heterogeneous nucleation and direct growth of ZnO nanowires on organic and inorganic substrates was prepared by low-temperature solution approach process. The experimental results showed that ZnO nanowires could be directly synthesized upon the concave of substrate without any pre-seeding. In this work ZnO nanowires were grown on both polystyrene bead layer and physical-grinded wafer substrate. ZnO nanowires with a broad aspect ratio of 10(-2) similar to 10(2) was controlled mainly by adjusting of reactant concentration and pH state of solution. A needle-like ZnO nanotip were also prepared by a two-step limited growth condition as a result that tip diameter is several nanometers only, which may be highly in favor of the field emission. Structure-induced heterogeneous nucleation and growth facilitates the fabrication of ZnO nanowires as the potential photocletronic units in field-emission displays.