ZnO nanocrystalline powder synthesized by ultrasonic mist-chemical vapour deposition

In this paper, we report on the synthesis and characterization of ZnO nanocrystalline powder grown by ultrasonic mist-chemical vapour deposition (UM-CVD) which is a promising method for large-area deposition at low temperatures taking into account of its simplicity, inexpensiveness and safety. The morphology and crystallite size of the ZnO nanopowder characterized by FESEM and TEM revealed that the powder consisted of the mixture of nanoparticles with particle size of 50-100 nm. The XRD results indicated that the synthesized ZnO powder had the pure wurtzite structure with lattice parameters a and c of 3.244 and 5.297 nm, and c/a ratio of 1.6, respectively. High temperature XRD studies of ZnO nanopowder showed that the crystallite size increased with increasing temperature with a systematic shift in peak positions towards lower 20 values due to change in lattice parameters. Temperature dependence of the lattice constants shows linear increase in their values. Diffraction patterns of ZnO nanopowder obtained from TEM were also in agreement with the XRD results. The synthesized powder exhibited the estimated direct band gap (E-g) of 3.43 cV. The optical band gap calculated from Tauc's relation and the band gap calculated from the particle size inferred from XRD were in agreement with each other. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.