The impact of various masking patterns and template layers on the wet chemically grown vertical ZnO nanowire arrays was investigated. The nanowires/nanorods were seeded at nucleation windows which were patterned in a mask layer using various techniques such as electron beam lithography, nanosphere photolithography, and atomic force microscope type nanolithography. The compared ZnO templates included single crystals, epitaxial layer, and textured polycrystalline films. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the alignment and crystal orientation of the nanowires were dictated by the underlying seed layer, while their geometry can be tuned by the parameters of the certain nanopatterning technique and of the wet chemical process. The comparison of the alternative nanolithography techniques showed that using direct writing methods the diameter of the ordered ZnO nanowires can be as low as 30-40 nm at a density of 100- 1000 NW/μm² in a very limited area (10 μm²-1 mm²). Nanosphere photolithography assisted growth, on the other hand, favors thicker nanopillars (~400 nm) and enables large-area, low-cost patterning (1-100 cm²). These alternative lowtemperature fabrication routes can be used for different novel optoelectronic devices, such as nanorod based ultraviolet photodiode, light emitting device, and waveguide laser.

Date Published: 1 March 2012
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8263, Oxide-based Materials and Devices III, 82631L (1 March 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.911204

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8263:
Oxide-based Materials and Devices III
Ferechteh H. Teherani; David C. Look; David J. Rogers, Editor(s)