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The lab is equipped with two systems for thermally activated chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of nanostructured materials, one working at atmospheric pressure and the other under vacuum control. Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures are deposited onto several types of substrate: silicon, SiO2, ITO/FTO glasses, conductive substrates (metals), Al2O3 and other insulating materials, etc. Depending on process parameters different structures may be deposited, among which spherical nanostructures, nanorods with hexagonal cross section, nanowires. In particular, vertically aligned ZnO nanorods can be deposited over relatively large areas (up to several mm2) with uniform coverage and spacing. They can reach a uniform length of several micrometres, and be between 50 and 100 nanometres in diameter. All ZnO nanostructures deposited by CVD show the crystallographic structure of hexagonal wurtzite, with a strong preferential orientation (002), as characterised by X-ray diffraction.
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