Morphology and optical properties of tetrapod-like zinc oxide whiskers synthesized via equilibrium gas expanding method
(Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials of Ministry of Education,
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China)
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China)
Abstract: The zinc oxide whiskers were synthesized by the equilibrium gas expanding method at the temperature of 700 °C with metallic zinc as the main raw material without any catalysts. The effects of the growth time on microstructure and photoluminescence properties were investigated. The results show that the as-grown samples are composed of uniform tetrapod-like ZnO whiskers. The length and diameter of the arms of the tetrapod-like ZnO whiskers increase obviously with the increase of the growth time. The strong single ultraviolet (UV) emission centering 385−391 nm without any accompanying deep-level emission is observed in the room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the whiskers. The intensity of UV emission increases markedly with the increase of growth time.
Key words: ZnO; whisker; oxidation; crystal growth