Growth and Characterization of Nano-Cups, Flowers and Nanorods of ZnO by Chemical Bath Deposition

Different structures like cups, flowers and hexagonal nanorods of ZnO on were synthesized by varying the reaction time, substrates (p-Si < 100 >, SiO2 and ZnO seeded SiO2), temperatures and reactant concentration in a low temperature (75 degrees C) chemical bath deposition (CBD) method The effect of variations in the formation parameters on the morphology and the degree of alignment of the nanostructures were studied For unseeded SiO2 substrates, 24 hours aging of the solution with optimum concentration produced ZnO nano-cups in a compact flower like structure, which may be highly suitable for chemical and biosensor applications Randomly oriented hexagonal nanorods and flower like structure made up of solid rods grew on p-Si < 100 > and SiO2 substrates for solutions without aging When a sol gel grown nanocrystalline ZnO seed layer on SiO2 was used as the substrate, solutions without aging produced aligned nanorod arrays oriented perpendicularly to the substrate The high-resolution FESEM, EDX, XRD and PL-spectra showed that these c-axis one dimensional nanorods of ZnO are highly crystalline in nature and showed strong ultraviolet emission properties