Ambient S annealing was adopted to regulate the crystallinity of a ZnS microsphere, which resulted in a significant improvement in the photocatalytic hydrogen production activity (PHPA). Moreover, with S ambient treatment, wurtzite ZnS showed better PHPA than sphalerite ZnS, possibly because the inter-polar electric field of the wurtzite phase could promote the separation of photo-excited elect...

Ultra-narrow wurtzite ZnS quantum wires assembled towards an onion slice shape are synthesized in water using a simple hydrothermal procedure. Wires are formed through an oriented attachment mechanism from wurtzite ZnS spherical particles. Strong confinement effect originated from the narrow width was observed and holds promise for use in broad optoelectronic device application.

We report a facile synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorod arrays using an optimized, chemical bath deposition method on glass, PET and Si substrates. The morphological and structural properties of the ZnO nanorod arrays were investigated using various techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, which revealed the formation of d...

The influence of the aluminum nitride (AlN) film texture on the chemical etching in KOH solution was invested. The AlN films with the different texture and crystal quality were prepared by sputtering. It is found that the chemical etching behaviors, including the etch rate, the activation energy, the surface morphology and the anisotropy, are strongly dependent on the film texture. There is a f...

One of the major challenges in the growth of quantum well and quantum dot heterostructures is the realization of atomically sharp interfaces. Nanowires provide a new opportunity to engineer the band structure as they facilitate the controlled switching of the crystal structure between the zinc-blende (ZB) and wurtzite (WZ) phases. Such a crystal phase switching results in the formation of cryst...

The horizontal growth of nanowires (NWs) using the surface-directed vapor-liquid-solid (SVLS) process has been demonstrated for a number of semiconductors and shows the unique ability of eliminating post-growth alignment steps. However, the epitaxial relationship between horizontal NWs and their underlying surface has not been well understood, as it becomes more convoluted in systems with close...

A solution based sonochemical synthesis method for ZnO rods is presented with a resulting growth rate in excess of 15 times faster than previously reported. Such material is solution processable and could be exploited in the fabrication of transparent conductors and/or large area electronics via inkjet printing methods or solution based self-assembly techniques. To understand the crystal struct...