Zinc oxide nanowires

ZnO nanowires (NWs) have attracted much interest in the past decade because of their various remarkable physical properties and potential applications in a number of emerging areas such as low-voltage and short-wavelength optoelectronics, photonics, actuators, and solar cells. As a promising compound semiconductor, ZnO has a number of advantages over other materials such as low cost and efficient excitonic emission. Tremendous effort has been made in recent years, however, high quality ZnO NWs with well controlled structure and property, especially doping with p-type conductivity, is still unavailable for device fabrication. This paper reviews some of the fundamental aspects of ZnO NW research and showcases the importance of ZnO NWs with proper properties for future applications. It includes the synthesis and patterned growth, the challenge for p-type doping, basic properties of ZnO NWs, and their potential applications. It concludes with future prospects of this exciting material. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.