Rapid growth of copper oxide nanorod arrays by a microwave heating approach

•Aligned CuO nanorods were synthesized by a continuously injected approach.•The length of CuO nanorods increases linearly with an extension of heating time.•As-grown samples are well crystallized with highly preferred orientation.•This method is also applicable for synthesizing the other nanomaterials rapidly.

High-quality aligned copper oxide (CuO) nanorod arrays have been synthesized using a microwave heating method. The fresh reactants are continuously injected into the reactor in order to accelerate the growth. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicate the as-prepared CuO nanorods are well crystallized with preferred growth direction of [0 2 0]. It is found that the length of these CuO nanorods increases linearly with an extension of heating time. The growth rate is about 544 nm per hour. The formation mechanism of these CuO nanorod arrays synthesized by the microwave heating method is also described. This method shows the potential for growing long CuO nanorods or other one-dimensional nanostructures in a short time.