Low temperature synthesis of single crystal ZnO microflower composed of hexagonal nanorods

In this letter, a facile synthesis of 2D-flowerlike ZnO was reported. The ZnO was synthesized by a simple addition of zinc salt with potassium hydroxide in water without using any template and surfactant at low temperature. The synthesized ZnO was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM). The XRD pattern indicated the formation of well crystallized Wurtzite ZnO and the FE-SEM results confirmed the formation of flowerlike morphological ZnO. The HR-TEM analysis indicated that the hexagonal nanorods were self-assembled by nanoparticles and microflower morphology was composed of hexagonal rods with the aspect ratios of about 4.2. The self-assembly mechanism was proposed for the formation of hexagonal nanorod and microflower like ZnO.