Synthesis, characterization and device applications of metal oxide nanostructures

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Metal oxide nanostructures have myriad applications in different areas such as gas sensing, optoelectronic devices etc., to name a few. As a result, the growth of metal-oxide nanostructures has been attempted through different techniques such as chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, hydrothermal growth, solution growth and sol-gel techniques. Zinc oxide is an important wide-band-gap semiconductor and is often doped with indium oxide (IO) for its interesting properties. As an important functional metal oxide, IO has attracted much attention due to its promising applications in optoelectronics in the visible spectral range.  Although various IO nanostructures have been fabricated by vapor phase and solution routes, most of the synthesized nanostructures, including polyhedral microcontainers, and 3D nanoparticles in particular, do not have very smooth surfaces or high crystalline quality which limits their application in optical and other devices. Among these different microcrystals, such as octahedral, truncated octahedral, decaoctahedra etc., the fabrication of nano to microcontainer like structures is challenging. These nanocontainers have potential applications as containers of nanograms of materials for use in drug delivery. Yet, their shape evolution and growth mechanisms have not yet been properly understood.

In our study, we explore the fabrication of indium zinc oxide mesocontainer structures  through an ambient-controlled thermal vapor phase deposition technique. Subsequently, characterization techniques are employed to attempt an explanation for the underlying growth mechanism of the mesocontainer structures. Figure 1 shows the schematic of the experimental setup.

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