Fabrication of surface-patterned and free-standing ZnO nanobowls

We present an alternative strategy for generating surface-patterned and free-standing ZnO nanobowls. Polymer films with spherical nanowell arrays were used as sacrificial templates to form the bowl-like ZnO nanoparticle structures. Our fabrication strategy can be applied to other functional oxide materials. The patterned structures were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).