CrystEngComm Blog

In this CrystEngComm Hot Article, Cao, Okada et al. describe a simple but effective catalyst-tailored chemical vapour deposition method for growing ZnO nanowires and nanobelts in a controlled way.  The ZnO nanobelts grown without using any catalyst or dopant show different optical properties than nanowires grown with a gold-catalyst assisted vapour-solid-liquid process.

Nanobelts and nanowires are the most important candidates for potential optoelectronic applications. When compared with nanowires, there is no common growth strategy that can be applied for nanobelts and, therefore, growth of ZnO nanobelts is more difficult.

Read more about these fascinating structures for free until 12th April 2011, here.

Catalyst/dopant-free growth of ZnO nanobelts with different optical properties from nanowires grown via a catalyst assisted method
B. Q. Cao, Z. M. Liu, H. Y. Xu, H. B. Gong, D. Nakamura, K. Sakai, M. Higashihata and T. Okada
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05058C