Purely Sonochemical Route for Oriented Zinc Oxide Nanowire Growth on Arbitrary Substrate

We report a simple sonochemical method for the seeding and synthesis of Zinc Oxide nanowire arrays that can be formed on a number of substrates that are stable in alcohol and aqueous solution. Vertically aligned ZnO NWs were synthesized from a single solution at room-ambient via ultrasonic excitation. Prior to the NW growth, a ZnO seed layer was deposited using the same system with a different solution. The optimal conditions to produce a high density of oriented wires along with their optical characteristics are presented for ZnO NWs with a significantly high growth rate compared with traditional growth techniques such as evaporation, chemical vapor deposition and sputtering. Our method promises a mass-manufacturable process for fast and inexpensive ZnO NW production for practical low cost electronics, photonics and energy conversion applications.