Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nano-superstructures (NSSs) have attracted intense research interests due to their large surface areas and unique properties. In this work, we report an original approach to synthesize ZnO NSSs in a one-step manner with a hydrothermal method. The crystalline structures and growth mechanism can be understood by surface energy calculations. The reaction kinetics was investigated ...

Potential characterization of deflected piezoelectric nanowires (NWs) is of great interest for current development of electromechanical nanogenerators that harvest ambient mechanical energy. In this paper, a Kelvin probe microscopy (KPM) technique hybridizing scanning KPM (SKPM) with atomic force microscope (AFM) surface-approach spectroscopy methods for characterizing in-plane piezoelectric po...

Related Articles Pressure and electric field effects on piezoelectric responses of KNbO3 J. Appl. Phys. 112, 064106 (2012) Structure and properties of La-modified Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 at ambient and elevated temperatures J. Appl. Phys. 112, 054111 (2012) Modeling of dielectric and piezoelectric response of 1-3 type piezocomposites J. Appl. Phys. 112, 044107 (2012) Remarkably high-temperature stable p...

One dimensional metal oxide nanostructures have attracted much attention owing to their fascinating functional properties. Among them, piezoelectricity and photocatalysts along with their related materials have stirred significant interests and widespread studies in recent years. In this work, we successfully transformed piezoelectric ZnO into photocatalytic TiO2 and formed TiO2/ZnO axial heter...

Electric potential produced in deformed piezoelectric nanostructures is of significance for both fundamental study and practical applications. To reveal the piezoelectric property of ZnO nanohelices, the piezoelectric potential in single-crystal nanohelices was simulated by finite element method calculations. For a nanohelix with a length of 1200 nm, a mean coil radius of 150 nm, five active co...

We demonstrate the growth of phosphorus doped Zn(1-x)Mg(x)O nanowire (NW) using pulsed laser deposition. For the first time, p-type Zn(0.92)Mg(0.08)O:P NWs are likely obtained in reference to atomic force microscopy based piezoelectric output measurements, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and the transport property between the NWs and a n-type ZnO film. A shallow acceptor level of approximatel...

We have investigated the effects of piezoelectric potential in a ZnO nanowire on the transport characteristics of the nanowire based field effect transistor through numerical calculations and experimental observations. Under different straining conditions including stretching, compressing, twisting, and their combination, a piezoelectric potential is created throughout the nanowire to modulatea...

In this work, we design and fabricate a wireless system with the main operating device based on zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires. The main operating device is based on piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) achieved using ZnO nanowires grown hydrothermally on paper substrate. The fabricated NG is capable of harvesting ambient mechanical energy from various kinds of human motion, e.g., footsteps. The harves...

Nanomaterials offer a number of properties that are of interest to the field of neural tissue engineering. Specifically, materials that exhibit nanoscale surface dimensions have been shown to promote neuron function while simultaneously minimizing the activity of cells such as astrocytes that inhibit central nervous system regeneration. Studies demonstrating enhanced neural tissue regeneration ...

We present a systematic study of the growth of hexagonal ZnO nanotube arrays using a solution chemical method by varying the growth temperature (<100 C), time and solution concentration. A piezoelectric nanogenerator using the as-grown ZnO nanotube arrays has been demonstrated for the first time. The nanogenerator gives an output voltage up to 35 mV. The detailed profile of the observed electri...