Microstructural evolution and optical properties of electrodeposited ZnO nanorods with deposition time

ZnO nanorods were prepared by the electrodeposition route on conductive Au/Si substrates. The effects of deposition time on the microstructural evolution and optical properties of ZnO nanorods were investigated. With increasing deposition time from 1 h to 20 h, the diameter and length of the ZnO nanorods increased gradually to about 328 run and 6.55 μm, respectively. The ZnO nanorods were dense and vertically wen-aligned. The photoluminescence (PL) peaks corresponding to the near band edge of ZnO were observed. With increasing deposition time, the intensity of PL peaks increased with nanorod growth up to 4 h and then decreased. This might be due to the degradation of crystal quality caused by merging of nanorods.