Growth of single crystal ZnO nanowires using sputter deposition

Single crystal zinc oxide is a very promising material for light-emitting devices in blue, violet, and ultraviolet regions due to its wide direct band gap of 3.37 eV. Single crystal ZnO has been in a form of thin film or tetrapod-like whisker. Recently, the growth of highly oriented ZnO whiskers was also reported. Irrespective of the form and growth technique, successful growth of single crystal films or whiskers inevitably requires the use of a single-crystal substrate such as sapphire and diamond. In this paper, we report the growth of single crystal ZnO nanowires on a non-single-crystal substrate using a conventional sputter deposition technique. An r.f. magnetron sputter deposition system was used for the growth of ZnO nanowires in O-2/Ar mixtures. The substrate used was silicon wafers with copper metallization. After the ZnO deposition, specimens were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), and selected area diffraction (SAD). (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.