Simas Račkauskas: ZnO nanowire synthesis and application

Abstract:

ZnO nanoparticles, as low cost and low toxic materials, have shown promising performances in sensing, catalysis and optoelectronics. ZnO nanowires (NWs) are the nanoparticles with an elongated, high aspect ratio form. Focus of our work is on the growth mechanisms, developing high yield NW growth methods to the feasible synthesis of ZnO NWs (or ZnO tetrapods), and further exploiting their excellent performance in sensing. We use ZnO NW based sensor platform, which involves chemoresistive sensing mechanism, low temperature preparation methods, therefore virtually any surface could be covered with a controllable thickness and morphology of ZnO NWs implying a wide range of application possibilities. We also established a correlation between the pore size in different ZnO nanostructures because of packing and their electrochemical properties. We expect that the detailed analysis of ZnO NWs will be advantageous for future electrochemical, biotechnological and electronic applications of these materials.