Synthesis of zinc oxide nanorods using carbon nanotubes as templates.pdfVIP

ARTICLE IN PRESS Journal of Crystal Growth 265 (2004) 184–189 Synthesis of zinc oxide nanorods using carbon nanotubes as templates Hua-Qiang Wu, Xian-Wen Wei*, Ming-Wang Shao, Jia-Shan Gu School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Bejing East Road 1, Wuhu 241000, People’s Republic of China Received 26 March 2003; accepted 28 January 2004 Communicated by M.S. Goorsky Abstract The filling of carbon nanotubes with zinc oxide via wet chemical techniques is presented. Crystalline zinc oxide was introduced into carbon nanotubes by immersing empty and dried opened tubes in zinc nitrate solution followed by filteration and calcination, which was characterized by means of energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). After burning off the carbon nanotubes at 750C in air for 2 h, crystalline zinc oxide nanorods, with diameters in the range of ca. 20–40 nm and length of up to 1 mm, were formed, and characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), TEM and HRTEM. XRD indicated that the nanorods were hexagonal ZnO. r 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: B1.Fullerenes; B1.Nanomaterials; B1.Zinc compounds 1. Introduction for optoelectronic application due to its wide band gap of 3.37 eV and large exciton bind- One-dimensional nanoscale semiconductor ma- ing energy of 60 meV [3–5]. ZnO has also great terials are currently the focus of considerable potential in applications in solar cell [6], sensors interest becaus