Low temperature growth of ZnO nanowire arrays with enhanced high performance photocatalytic activity and reusability

• ZnO nanowire arrays have been synthesized at low reaction temperature (80 °C).
• ZnO nanowire arrays have been grown at short reaction time (1.5 h).
• ZnO nanowire arrays exhibit very prominent green emission in the CL spectrum.
• ZnO nanowire arrays exhibit very effective and recyclable photocatalysts.
• The ZnO nanowire arrays shall be beneficial for optoelectronic applications.

Aligned ZnO nanowire arrays have been grown on the silicon substrates with ZnO seed layer by an aqueous chemical growth process at low reaction temperature. The volumes of ammonium hydroxide solution are not only controlled by the dimension and density of ZnO nanowires, but are also influenced by their optical emission property. The ZnO nanowire arrays exhibit very strong and broad green emission from defect in the cathodoluminescence spectrum. In addition, the ZnO nanowires grown on the silicon substrates can serve as effective and convenient recyclable photocatalysts. Only a very slight decrease in the photodecomposition rate was observed after ten cycles of the photocatalysis experiment.