Optical quality improvement of electrical circuits’ electrode zinc oxide nanowires

Iranian researchers from Islamic Azad University, the Masjed Soleiman Branch, succeeded in the production of zinc oxide nanowire as a nanostructure with electrode and high optical quality. The synthesized nanowire has wide applications in optical electronic industries. Difficulty of connection is one of the most important problems in the use of nanowires and their installment in electronic circuits. Therefore, if an electrode can be made on the nanowire while it is growing, the nanowire can be easily placed in electronic circuits to benefit from its advantages. In this research, indium oxide was used as a semi-conductor with high density of n-type carriers. The researchers produced grown zinc oxide nanowires by using indium oxide particles. The innovation in this research was the use of indium as an appropriate replacement for the common metallic catalysts. Dr. Ramin Yousefi, one of the researchers, believes that since melting point of indium oxide is lower than that of zinc oxide, indium oxide islands grow on silicone sublayer at first, which acts as centers to adsorb zinc oxide vapor. When zinc oxide vapors are saturated on the islands, they grow in the form of wire, and indium oxide nanoparticles are placed on the top of the wires as the electrodes. According to Dr. Yousefi, production of nanowire through this method resolved the problem of reduction in optical quality of the grown nanowire as well as creating an electrode on the nanowire. In other words, the grown nanowires did not lose their optical quality because of the presence of indium oxide electrode, but they also showed higher quality than nanowires without electrodes. Results of the research were chosen as one of the top researches confirmed by Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council, and they have been published in details in Ceramics International, vol. 39, issue 5, pp. 5191-5196.