Implementing the Reactor Geometry in the Modeling of Chemical Bath Deposition of ZnO Nanowires

The formation of nanowires by chemical bath deposition is of great interest for a wide variety of optoelectronic, piezoelectric, and sensing devices, from which the theoretical description of their elongation process has emerged as a critical issue. Despite its strong influence on the nanowire growth kinetics, reactor size has typically not been taken into account in the theoretical modeling developed so far. We report a new theoretical description of the axial growth rate of nanowires in dynamic conditions based on the solution of Fick’s diffusion equations, implementing a sealed reactor of finite height as a varying parameter. The theoretical model is applied in various chemical bath deposition conditions in the case of the growth of ZnO nanowires, from which the influence of the reactor height is investigated and compared to experimental data. In particular, it is found that the use of reactor heights smaller than 2 cm significantly decreases the ZnO nanowires’ axial growth rate in typical experimental conditions due to the faster depletion of reactants. The present approach is further used predictively, showing its high potential for the design of batch reactors for a wide variety of chemical precursors and semiconductor materials in applied research and industrial production.