A Facile Chemical Conversion Synthesis of ZnO/ZnS Core/Shell Nanorods and Diverse Metal Sulfide Nanotubes

We report a simple chemical conversion approach to fabricate ZnO/ZnS core/shell nanorods and various metal sulfide nanotubes such as ZnS, Ag 2 S, CuS, PbS, and Bi 2 S 3 . The formation mechanisms of the ZnO/ZnS core/shell nanorods and ZnS nanotubes are due to the sulfidation conversion and the Kirkendall effect, respectively, in a low-temperature hydrothermal growth through the reaction of ZnO nanowires and thioacetamide. The successful chemical conversion of the ZnS nanotubes into the other metal sulfide nanotubes is to utilize the large difference in solubility between ZnS and the other metal sulfides for the effective transformation. In addition to the perfect maintenance of the morphology after conversion, we have shown that the yielded metal sulfide nanostructures possess good crystalline qualities with high optical and sensing performances. The present chemical conversion technique is expected to be employed in a broad range of applications to fabricate innovative semiconductor core/shell and hollow structures with various compositions and shapes for unique properties.