Structural and optical studies of ZnO nanostructures

We report on the structural and optical properties of the ZnO nanostructures synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. The average diameters of as grown ZnO nanorods and nanowires as seen from the field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) are ∼575 nm and ∼40 nm, respectively. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results provide the conclusive evidence of the ZnO nanostructures. UV-VIS spectra of ZnO nanowires show the absorbance edge of pure ZnO is 337 nm and the band gap was determined by the linear exploration of the steep part of absorbance curve towards base line i.e. 3.72 eV which may be due to quantum confinement.