Low temperature hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO nanowires for nanogenerator: Effect of gold electrode on the output voltage of nanogenerator

Abstract

A low temperature hydrothermal technique is developed to grow ZnO (diameter 100 nm) nanowires for high output nanogenerator. Vertically aligned ZnO nanowires are grown on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated poly ethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Morphologies and elemental compositions are examined through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) respectively. X-Ray diffraction peaks have shown growth orientation of these nanowires along (002) direction. We have investigated the effect of sputter coated gold electrode on top of ZnO nanowires. Vertically grown ZnO nanowires under a minute stress have produced a high output voltage of 1.34 V.