Large area assembly of zinc oxide nanowire arrays by surface energy contrast template

A technique of utilizing surface energy contrast template to fabricate the patterned arrays of zinc oxide nanowires is proposed. Firstly, the ZnO sol–gel precursor film is patterned by the film’s wetting and dewetting process on a surface energy contrast template, and then the patterned ZnO precursor film is annealed to change into a patterned ZnO seed layer. Through a chemical bath deposition process, the patterned arrays of zinc oxide nanowires are grown on the ZnO seed layer. In the experiment, zinc oxide nanowires are regularly patterned in arrays of different width from 1 μm to 50 nm. The zinc oxide nanowires have a vertically aligned orientation in the arrays, and the arrays are well separated among each other. Moreover, the diameters of the ZnO nanowires fluctuate very slightly, almost all the ZnO nanowires are around 30 nm, no matter they come from micro/nano arrays or from macro areas.

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► A technique to fabricate patterned micro/nano arrays of ZnO NWs is proposed.
► The mechanism of the patterning process by a surface energy contrast template is analyzed.
► Using the technique, the ZnO NWs are regularly patterned in arrays of different width from 1 μm down to 50 nm.
► The ZnO NWs have a vertically aligned orientation and the ZnO NW arrays are well separated.