Direct fabrication of ZnO nanorods array on-chip system in solution and their electrical properties

To avoid a traditional pick-and-place method of nanodevice fabrication and directly measure the electrical characteristics of as-grown nanorods (NRs), the ZnO NR arrays were fabricated directly on-chip system by the site-selective growth of nanorods thus forming nanorod-array bridges between two-point gold electrodes. This is attractive, realistic, straightforward and highly reproducible technique to grow nanostructures onto the electrodes. The ZnO NR arrays were grown at 70 °C on the pre-patterned two-point electrode system without damaging the electrodes structure and geometry. The electrodes remain completely intact in the chemical solution for 6 h growth of NRs. The effect of oxygen-plasma treatment on the electrical properties of the ZnO NR arrays based two-point electrodes system was investigated in detail.

► A low-cost and highly applicable method of growing the ZnO nanorods array directly on the two-point electrode system.
► The ZnO nanorods array grown at 70 °C on the pre-patterned two-point electrode system without damaging the electrodes structure and geometry.
► The two-probe method enabled us to perform electrical measurements directly on the as-grown ZnO nanorods array without any additional processing.