Self-assembled ultrafine hierarchical ZnS treelike nanoarchitectures

Ultrafine hierarchical tree-shaped nanoarchitectures of ZnS were synthesized by a H2-assisted thermal evaporation and condensation technique. Morphology and composition of the ZnS deposit were studied by means of field emission scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The deposit was found to consist of a layer of oriented submicrorods partly covered by microsheets and randomly oriented submicrowires, and three-dimensional treelike nanoarchitectures grew epitaxially on various submicrorods, microsheets, and submicrowires. The growth of the nanostructures is a spontaneous and self-assembled process. Vapor-solid (VS) growth mechanism is proposed for the formation of the treelike nanostructures because catalyst was not introduced during the synthesis process. This novel hierarchical ZnS nanoarchitecture may offer great potential for applications, including three-dimensional nanoelectronics and high efficient spatial resolved photon detector.