Controllable synthesis and optical properties of connected zinc oxide nanoparticles

Connected zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles are successfully synthesized by a simple solution-based chemical route that uses evaporation and concentration technology. The influences of processing parameters, especially the evaporation and concentration time on the size and morphology of the nanoparticles, have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution TEM (HRTEM). The structure and optical properties are systematically characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV/Vis spectrophotometery, and fluorescence spectroscopy (FL). It is found that the average diameter and morphology are strongly affected by the evaporation and concentration time. Additionally, the formation mechanism of the nanoparticles is also discussed. The studies revealed that the evaporation and concentration are important aggregation or nucleation processes for ZnO growth, which leads to the macro-differences in morphology. These results provide some insight into the growth mechanism of ZnO nanostructures. The synthetic strategy developed in this study may also be extended to the preparation of other nanomaterials and promising applications in various fields of nanotechnology.