Preparation of vertically aligned ZnO nanorods on AZO thin film by hydrothermal method

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated the effect of growth time on the morphology of zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) on 40 nm-thick sputtered Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films. The ZnO NRs were grown on AZO films by hydrothermal method using zinc acetate and hexamethylenetramine (HMTA) as precursor at 90 °C. The growth time varied from 3-12 hour. The structure and morphology were characterized by X-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The ZnO NRs showed a good crystallinity with vertically alignment. In addition, the result indicates that different growth time produced different morphologies and growth mechanisms of ZnO NRs on the AZO thin films were discussed. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.