Ultrafast microwave-assisted synthesis of various zinc oxide nanostructures

Abstract

The conventional hydrothermal process for the synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures has been a slow process and provides less control in terms of shape, size and nucleation time. Whereas, synthesis through microwave heating takes only a few minutes to produce high quality, ultra-pure zinc oxide nanostructures. In this study, we have presented a protocol to fabricate various ZnO nanostructures (vertically-aligned nanorods, vertically-aligned nanowalls, nano flowers and nanopillars) using a domestic microwave oven. Based upon the process study, variation in diameter and length of vertically aligned ZnO nanorods with growth time has been reported. Uniformly distributed ZnO&nbsp; nanowalls&nbsp; along with ZnO nanoflowers have been fabricated in less than 5 minutes. In addition to this, ZnO nanopillars have been fabricated for the first-time using evaporation and degradation phenomena in themicrowave oven. Furthermore,the ZnO nanorods have been found to exhibit a super hydrophobic behaviour, whereas the ZnO nanowalls, nanoflowers and nanopillars have shown a hydrophobic behaviour. The developed ZnO nanostructures may have been found their applications in the areas of optics, electronics, biomedical, solar cell, sensors and transistors <em>etc.