We report on the successful fabrication of ZnO nanorod (NR)/polystyrene (PS) nanosphere hybrid nanostructure by combining drop coating and hydrothermal methods. Especially, by adopting an atomic layer deposition method for seed layer formation, very uniform ZnO NR structure is grown on the complicated PS surfaces. By using zinc nitrate hexahydrate [Zn(NO3)2 ·6H2O] and hexamine [(CH2)6N4] as sources for Zn and O in hydrothermal process, hexagonal shaped single crystal ZnO NRs are synthesized without dissolution of PS in hydrothermal solution. X-ray diffraction results show that the ZnO NRs are grown along c-axis with single crystalline structure and there is no trace of impurities or unintentionally formed intermetallic compounds. Photoluminescence spectrum measured at room temperature for the ZnO NRs on flat Si and PS show typical two emission bands, which are corresponding to the band-edge and deep level emissions in ZnO crystal. Based on these structural and optical investigations, we confirm that the ZnO NRs can be grown well even on the complicated PS surface morphology to form the chestnut-shaped hybrid nanostructures for the energy generation and storage applications.
Citations
We report on the succesful fabrication of ZnO nanorod (NR)-based robust piezoelectric nanogenerators (PNGs) by using Cu foil substrate. The ZnO NRs are successfully grown on the Cu foil substrate by using all solution based method, a two step hydrothermal synthesis. The ZnO NRs are grown along c-axis well with an average diameter of 75~80 nm and length of 1~1.5 μm. The ZnO NRs showed abnormal photoluminescence specrta which is attributed from surface plasmon resonance assistant enhancement at specific wavelength. The PNGs on the SUS substrates show typical piezoelectric output performance which showing a frequency dependent voltage enhancement and polarity dependent charging and discharging characteristics. The output voltage range is 0.79~2.28 V with variation of input strain frequency of 1.8~3.9 Hz. The PNG on Cu foil shows reliable output performance even at the operation over 200 times without showing degradation of output voltage. The current output from the PNG is 0.7 μA/cm2 which is a typical output range from the ZnO NR-based PNGs. These performance enhancement is attributed from the high flexibility, high electrical conductivity and excellent heat dissipation properties of the Cu foil as a substrate.
Citations