Peanut-Like ZnO Superstructures: Rapid and Facile Lightwave-Assisted Synthesis and Characterization

Abstract

Peanut-like ZnO superstructures 450–600 nm in length and 150–250 nm in diameter have been successfully fabricated via a rapid and facile lightwave-assisted method without the addition of any surfactant or capping molecules. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HRTEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) were used to characterize the products. SEM and TEM results reveal that the peanut-like superstructures are composed of many nanoparticles with size of about 10 nm. The effect of reaction time on the morphology of the products was also investigated. It turns out that the peanut-like superstructures become more uniform and larger with the prolonging of reaction time. The peanut-like ZnO superstructures exhibit a yellow emission on excitation with 320 nm ultraviolet light.

Keywords:

• Lightwave
• Superstructure
• ZnO

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

S. L. Zhong acknowledges the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (No. 2010BJB01100), Project under Scientific and Technological Planning of Education Office of Jiangxi Province (No. GJJ11382), and the Opening Fund of Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Traditional Chinese Medicine Research (Ministry of Education of China), Hunan Normal University (No. KLCBTCMR2011-04).