Title: Effects of temperature on ZnO nano- and microspheres: synthesis and optical properties

Authors: Syed Ghazanfar Hussain, Deming Liu, Xintang Huang, Kamal Mahir Sulieman, Sahibzada T. Rasool

Addresses: Opto-Electronics Engineering Department, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, P.R. China; Government College Gujranwala 52250 Punjab, Pakistan. ' Opto-Electronics Engineering Department, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, P.R. China. ' Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, P.R. China. ' Physics Department, College of Education, Alzaim Alazhary University, Khartoum Bahry 1432, Sudan. ' Northern Institute of Medical Sciences, Abbotabad 22010, Pakistan

Abstract: We have reported the synthesis of porous particles of ZnO by thermal evaporation and transport method on silicon (111) substrates. The products were grown in a single-step catalyst-free process. In order to establish the optimum conditions for the preparation of ZnO porous particles, we performed synthetic studies on various growth temperatures. The morphological, structural and optical properties of the synthesised ZnO particles were characterised by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and room temperature photoluminescence (RTPL) using a xenon lamp with an excitation wavelength of 325 nm. The photoluminescence spectrum of the sample-I showed stronger visible band emission as compared to others at room temperature. This stronger visible emission in the synthesised porous nanoparticles might be useful as a future UV-excited phosphor for producing bright and broad band visible-light. The change in growth temperature altered the morphological and optical characteristics of the nano- and microspheres.

Keywords: zinc oxide; chemical vapour deposition; CVD; scanning electron microscopy; SEM; nanotechnology; X-ray diffraction; XRD; optical properties; ZnO nanospheres; ZnO microspheres; porous nanoparticles; morphology; nanostructures; photoluminescence; UV-excited phosphor.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNP.2009.028779

International Journal of Nanoparticles, 2009 Vol.2 No.1/2/3/4/5/6, pp.443-450

Published online: 30 Sep 2009 *

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