Structural characterization of ZnO nano-chains studied by electron microscopy

We have examined the morphology of zinc oxide (ZnO) fibers exhibiting high-performance of photocatalyst in visible-light region, by means of scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The ZnO fibers consist of ZnO micro-rods, and each of the micro-rods further is constructed from ZnO nano-crystals, which have high crystallinity, clean surfaces and diameters of a few tens of nanometers. From nano-beam diffraction, the ZnO nano-crystals are connected without definite orientation relations. The microstructure of surfaces is suspected to be strongly related to the visible-light photocatalytic ability of this fiber.