Controlled Synthesis of ZnO Nanostructures by Electrodeposition without Any Pretreatment and Additive Regent

ZnO nanostructures have been fabricated using electrodeposition method without any additive reagent and nucleation-layer. The influences of the applied voltage, temperature, electrolyte concentration, and time on the nanostructures of ZnO have been investigated using cyclic voltammety (CV), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The result shows that the 1-dimensional (1D) nanostructures tend to be formed at lower voltage and electrolyte concentration, while 2-dimentional (2D) nanostructures can be easily obtained at higher voltage and concentration. Although increasing temperature is helpful to grow 1D nanostructures, but excessive high temperature will destroy the ZnO nanostructures because of the high solubility of ZnO. Furthermore, we reveal the mechanism of the formation of ZnO nanostructures mainly depends on the competition between the hydroxylation and dehydration reaction. Our work is helpful for developing the photocatalytic and photodetection applications using different ZnO nanostructures.