In situ study of epitaxial growth of ZnO nanowires at the junctions of nanowall networks on zinc particles

The authors show the real-time growth of ZnO nanowalls and nanowires on zinc particles via in situ observation in an environmental scanning electron microscopy. It was observed that a ZnO polycrystalline film is first deposited on zinc particles. The nanowires started to grow when the nanowalls had just formed and they grew epitaxially on the junctions of the nanowalls. The nanowalls and the nanowires grew together until the source of zinc was exhausted. The vapor–solid mechanism is deemed to be the growth mechanism as it quantitatively accounts for the growth speed of the nanowalls and nanowires observed in the experiment. Cathodoluminescence reveals that the growth at low zinc concentration leads to blue emission from defects, which may be zinc vacancies.