A Simple Ball Milling and Thermal Oxidation Method for Synthesis of ZnO Nanowires Decorated with Cubic ZnO(2) Nanoparticles

In this work, we propose the synthesis of ZnO nanostructures through the thermal oxidation of ball-milled powders with the introduction of Mg and Sn doping species at the preliminary step of milling. We investigate the advantages and challenges of this two steps process for the production and fabrication of highly crystalline ZnO nanowires. This simple method allows us to fabricate ZnO nanowires with a higher quality core crystal at a much lower temperature and for a shorter processing time than the state-of-the-art, and decorated with by ZnO(2) nanoparticles as determined via TEM analysis. The main findings will show that the crystalline core of the nanowires is of hexagonal ZnO while the nanoparticles on the surface are ZnO(2) cubic type. Generally, the method proves to be suitable for applications that require a high surface-to-volume ratio, for example, catalysis phenomena, in which the presence of zinc oxides species can play an important role.