Carbon Oxide Decomposition as a Novel Technique for Ultrahigh Quality ZnO Nanowire Crystallization

• Published in: Crystal growth & design Vol. 23; no. 9; pp. 6442 - 6449
• Main Authors: Zajkowska-Pietrzak, Wiktoria, Turczyński, Jakub, Kret, Sławomir, Andryszewski, Tomasz, Suffczyński, Jan, Reszka, Anna, Stachowicz, Marcin, Wierzbicka, Aleksandra, Fronc, Krzysztof, Teisseyre, Henryk
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 06.09.2023
• ISSN: 1528-7483; 1528-7505
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.cgd.3c00414

We present a carbon oxide decomposition (COD) method of growing ZnO nanowires (NWs). The “ordinary” carbothermal process of ZnO NW production involves a reduction of ZnO by carbon to the Zn vapor form and the subsequent reaction of the Zn vapor with additionally introduced oxygen in a large volume furnace. In the case of the COD method, the reaction between carbon (graphite) and ZnO produces Zn vapor and CO/CO2 gas mixtures, which subsequently react in a reduced reaction volume to produce the ZnO NWs. Studies conducted on individual NWs confirm that the ZnO NWs obtained by the COD method exhibit very good structural and optical properties, such as the ultranarrow spectral linewidth (0.5 meV) of the acceptor-bound exciton transition. By performing thermodynamic calculations based on free Gibbs energy and equilibrium constants of 10 theoretical reactions, we confirm that in a system without oxygen, the most preferable reaction to grow ZnO NWs is the reduction of CO by Zn.