Hydrothermal Synthesis of Flower-Like ZnO Nanostructures and their Optical Properties

Abstract

Flower-like ZnO nanostructures have been synthesized using zinc nitrate hexahydrate and hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) by a low-temperature hydrothermal technique. The prepared ZnO nanostructures exhibit hexagonal wurtzite structure, well-defined flower-like morphology, and a strong blue emission photoluminescence. Flower-like ZnO nanostructures consisting of multilayered petals are formed with the length of about 1 μm. All the flower petals exhibit the tapering feature with the root size of 300-500 nm and tip size of 50-100 nm. The prepared ZnO sample has been studied using x-ray diffraction technique, energy dispersive x-ray analysis, scanning electron microscope and FTIR spectroscopy. The photoluminescence spectrum demonstrated two emission bands, a near band edge (NBE) emission in the UV region centering at 386 nm and a high intensity deep band emission (DBE) in the visible region centering at 483 nm.