Control of epitaxial growth orientation in ZnO nanorods on c-plane sapphire substrates

This paper presents a study on low temperature hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanorods (NRs) on pre-seeded (0001) sapphire substrates. Prior to hydrothermal growth of ZnO NRs, epitaxial ZnO seeds were grown by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition under various process conditions. Findings show that the majority of ZnO NRs inclined at a specific angle of about 38° to the direction perpendicular to the substrate surface and exhibited a preferential in-plane alignment, besides other NRs growing vertically from the sapphire surface. X-ray diffraction φ-scan measurements reveal that the ZnO nanorods displayed two distinct epitaxial relationships with sapphire which were (0001)ZnO//(0001)sapphire and (0001)ZnO//(101̅4)sapphire, respectively. Reduced lattice mismatch between ZnO and sapphire is responsible for the inclined ZnO NRs growth. The growth direction of ZnO NRs is remarkably dependent on the growth conditions of ZnO seeds and sapphire substrate pre-treatment. The epitaxial orientations of ZnO seeds grown on the sapphire substrate dominate the subsequent ZnO NRs growth and can be controlled through adjusting growth conditions.