Synthesis and photoluminescence of aligned ZnO nanorods by thermal decomposition of zinc acetate at a substrate temperature of ∼250 °C

We report here a low-temperature approach which is simple and catalyst free to synthesize aligned ZnO nanorods on flat substrates, i.e. decomposing zinc acetate (C 4 H 6 O 4 Zn) in air at ∼250 °C. The ZnO nanorods prepared by this method exhibited strong photoluminescence at ∼377 nm, ∼387 nm and ∼401 nm. Thermal annealing experiments suggested that the emission at ∼401 nm might be due to the defects in the ZnO nanorods which can be removed by low-temperature annealing, and that the near band-edge emissions at ∼377 and ∼387 nm might be caused by the difference in the diameter of the nanorods.