Seed/catalyst-free growth of zinc oxide nanostructures on multilayer graphene by thermal evaporation
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NANO EXPRESS
Open Access
Seed/catalyst-free growth of zinc oxide nanostructures on multilayer graphene by thermal evaporation Nurul Fariha Ahmad1, Nurul Izni Rusli2, Mohamad Rusop Mahmood3, Kanji Yasui4 and Abdul Manaf Hashim1,5*
Abstract We report the seed/catalyst-free growth of ZnO on multilayer graphene by thermal evaporation of Zn in the presence of O2 gas. The effects of substrate temperatures were studied. The changes of morphologies were very significant where the grown ZnO structures show three different structures, i.e., nanoclusters, nanorods, and thin films at 600°C, 800°C, and 1,000°C, respectively. High-density vertically aligned ZnO nanorods comparable to other methods were obtained. A growth mechanism was proposed based on the obtained results. The ZnO/graphene hybrid structure provides several potential applications in electronics and optoelectronics. Keywords: Graphene; Thermal evaporation; Zinc oxide; Nanostructure; Hybrid integration
Background In recent years, strong attentions have been paid in the growth of semiconductor nanostructures on graphene [1-5] for electronic and optoelectronic applications. Nanostructures such as nanowires, nanorods, nanoneedles, nanosheets, and nanowalls can offer additional functionality to graphene for realizing advanced nanoscale applications in photovoltaics, nanogenerators, field emission devices, sensitive biological and chemical sensors, and efficient energy conversion and storage devices [6-8]. This is due to the superb properties of nanostructures such as high aspect ratio, extremely large surface-tovolume ratio, and high porosity [6-10]. Graphene has a great potential for novel electronic devices because of its extraordinary electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties, including carrier mobility exceeding 104 cm2/Vs and a thermal conductivity of 103 W/mK [11-14]. Therefore, with the excellent electrical and thermal characteristics of graphene layers, growing semiconductor nanostructures on graphene layers would enable their novel physical properties to be exploited in diverse sophisticated device applications. Graphene is a 2D hexagonal network of * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Semarak, Kuala Lumpur 54100, Malaysia 5 MIMOS Berhad, Technology Park Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
carbon atoms which is formed by making strong triangular σ-bonds of the sp2 hybridized orbitals. This bonding structure is similar to the (111) plane of zincblende structure and C plane of a hexagonal crystalline structure. With this regard, the growth of semiconductor nanostructures and thin films on graphene is feasible. Recently, there are several works on the growth and application of graphene/semiconductor nanocrystals that show desirable combinations of these properties not found in the individual components [15-20]. The 1D zinc oxide (ZnO) semiconducting nanostructures are considered to be impor
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