Synthesis And Characterization Of Zinc Oxide Nanowire

ABSTRACT

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanowires with hexagonal structure were successfully synthesized by chemical

bath deposition technique. The obtained nanowires were characterized by scanning electron

microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and

spectrophotometer. The SEM micrographs revealed the morphology of ZnO nanowires with

diameter between 170.3 and 481nm and showed that the pH of the bath solution, 8.1 is the

optimized value to form ZnO nanowires with hexagonal shape. The XRD pattern of the samples

revealed that ZnO nanowire has a hexagonal crystallite structure and further showed that the

crystallite size supported by Scherrer’s equation increase with increasing annealing temperature

(0.536 nm, 0.541nm, 0.557 nm at 1000C, 1500C and 2000C) respectively. The EDX analysis

revealed the elemental compositions of samples and confirmed the presence of Zn and O. The

results of the optical analysis showed that ZnO nanowire has high absorbance in the ultraviolet

and infrared regions with high transmittance in the visible region. The results further revealed

that the absorbance of the nanowire increase with increasing annealing temperature. Its high

absorbance in the ultraviolet region suggest that it can be use as solar harvester for trapping

solar energy for photovoltaic panel which is capable of converting sunlight radiation directly to

electricity for commercial or industrial purpose.