Utilization of piezoelectric effect in zinc oxide nanowires as a nanogenerator

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2767340_(Table of contents)

Zinc oxide (ZnO) holds a special stature in materials for energy applications due to its phenomenal properties. The wide range of ZnO morphologies enables a wide range of applications such as nanogenerators, sensors, dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS), light-emitting diodes (LED), and many others. Synthesis techniques of high aspect ratio ZnO nanowires (NW) have been thoroughly studied in the past decade for high piezoelectric properties products. This thesis provides an addition to the vast research of ZnO NWs synthesis by the microwave-assisted hydrothermal method owing to its advantages of high-quality NWs product, simplicity, and rapidness. ZnO NWs synthesized by the microwave-assisted method are analyzed by spectroscopic techniques to gain an understanding of the defective structure of ZnO. The intrinsic and extrinsic defective structure of ZnO NWs is analyzed by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, introduced into the structure by the controlled manipulation of the nano-structure, or doping with transition metal ions (TMI) such as Mn. The outcome is optimizing the process of producing ZnO NWs with a high piezoelectric coefficient up to 20 pC/N.