Novel approach to fabricate bi-dimensional ZnO nanowires and nanohole arrays

A novel hybrid approach of colloidal lithography and MOCVD has been successfully used to fabricate nanoporous ZnO based layers with remarkable high surface areas. Such nanostructured layers are appealing for a wide variety of applications including bioengineering, catalysis, environmental engineering and sensor systems. Ordered ZnO and Al doped ZnO (AZO) highly crystalline nanowires and nanoholes have been grown using ordered patterns of closely packed Polystyrene (PS) self-assembled colloids and catalyst metalorganic precursors. The main advantage of this approach is the employment of liquid precursor solutions, having tunable concentrations, easy spinnable on any type of substrate. The selected metalorganic precursors (Ag, Pt) exhibit an efficient catalytic activity leading to massive and uniform ZnO based nanowires and nanobundles formation, while homogeneous 150 nm thick ZnO film have been obtained working under the same deposition conditions in the absence of catalyst. Moreover, at milder deposition conditions (temperature down to 450°C /short time deposition conditions), a local enhancement of catalytic effect has been observed for the PS patterned substrates which results in ordered ZnO and AZO nanoholes arrays.