Fabrication of zinc oxide microstructures and their properties*

The bitter-melon-like and prism-like zinc oxide (ZnO) microstructures have been synthesized by hydrothermal route. Besides these microstructures, the ZnO material also consists of spherical nanoparticles with narrow size distribution. The as-synthesized ZnO material depicts hexagonal crystal structure. An optical band gap of 2.95 eV is determined from the UV-vis absorption band edge. The prism-like ZnO microstructure shows an ultraviolet near-band-edge emission at about 3.27 eV (380 nm) at room temperature which can be assigned to the radiative annihilation of excitons. The wide-band gap oxide materials like ZnO with short-wavelength PL emission can find application in light emitting devices.