ZnO-NWs/Metallic Glass Nanotube Hybrid Arrays: Fabrication and Material Characterization

Abstract In this work, we fabricated first-ever nanohybrids ZnO nanowires (ZnO-NWs)/Metallic Nanotube Arrays (MeNTA) structure for the large-scale fabrication of highly dense laterally and vertical aligned ZnO-NWs. To prepare heterogeneous surface MeNTA by using sputter-deposition of different metallic glasses (Zr55Cu30Al10Ni5, Cu47Zr42Al7Ti4, Pd72Cu12Si16, W50Ni25B25 and Ni54B0.3Si36Cr2.7Fe7) over on contact-hole arrays created by a photoresist template with 650 nm height and various diameter (2, 10 and 20 μm). A ZnO seed layer is deposited by sputtering method on MeNTA to provide the nucleation sites to grow the nanowires inside the MeNTA. To perform the material analysis like surface morphology, crystal structural, and optical properties were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman, XPS and photoluminescence, respectively. Our results confirm that, the nanowires having the hexagonal wurtzite structure and presenting strong UV emissions can be used in optoelectronics, sensors, piezoelectric-nanogenerator, solar cells and battery applications.