A comparative study on the structural properties of ZnO and Ni-doped ZnO nanostructures

• Ni doping amount affects the growth rate and surface morphology.
• Crystalline quality of Ni-ZnO nanorods is better than that of ZnO nanorods.
• At low Ni doping amount, the length and diameter of nanorods decreases and increases.
• Beyond substitution limit (7 mM), Ni-ZnO sample shows sphere-like structure.
• Ni-ZnO nanostructures exhibit good transparency in the visible region.

We investigated the structural properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods with various Ni doping amounts. The length and diameter of the nanorods decreased and increased, respectively, with increasing Ni doping amount to 5 mM. Ni-doped ZnO (Ni-ZnO) nanorods exhibited better crystalline quality than undoped ZnO nanorods. In the visible wavelength region, the optical transmittance of Ni-ZnO nanorods was slightly lower than that of ZnO nanorods. Upon further increasing the Ni doping amount (7 mM), the morphology of Ni-ZnO dramatically changed from that of nanorods to a sphere-like structure assembled with interwoven nanowalls. Ni incorporation is a facile strategy for tuning growth behavior and morphology of ZnO nanostructures.

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