Germanium‐Catalyzed Growth of Zinc Oxide Nanowires: A Semiconductor Catalyst for Nanowire Synthesis

Green fields of nanowires: Germanium, a Group IV semiconductor, can act as an efficient catalyst for high-rate (up to 400 μm h−1) growth of very long (up to 200 μm), extremely straight, and quasi-aligned arrays of single-crystalline ZnO nanowires (see picture). The diameter of the Ge particles (0.5–4 μm) is about 5–15 times that of the associated nanowires (50–400 nm). The patterned growth of ZnO nanorods was achieved on photolithographically prepared Ge-dot patterns.