Growth of ZnO Nanowires by Vapour Solid Mechanism

The growth of zinc oxide nanowires is further investigated by thermal evaporation method and is discussed with respect to vapour-solid (V-S) growth mechanism. In this paper, ZnO nanowires were synthesized on glass substrate without the use of any catalyst with a constant flow of argon gas 1.36 psig and oxygen gas of 0.34 psig. Zinc powder of 99.99% purity is placed in a horizontal furnace and exposed to temperature of 600°C for 90 minutes. The surface morphology of the deposited zinc oxide is investigated by the atomic force microscopy (AFM) images and it was found that the deposited ZnO has a rough surface while field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) confirms the morphology of the ZnO nanowires. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra indicate that the optical quality of the deposited structure is potentially excellent with high energy excitonic emission close to the band edge which is assigned to the surface exciton in ZnO at 3.4eV.