Structure and Growth Mechanism of High-quality Tetrapod-like ZnO Whiskers

The tetrapod-like ZnO whiskers were synthesized by oxidation of the Zn powders. High purity and perfect crystalline T-ZnO whiskers with different sizes were obtained by controlling gas supersaturation in the reaction container. The length of legs of the whiskers is approximately 5-30 jim and the geometrical edge size of centering nucleus is approximately 1-2 μm. Especially, the whiskers had long tail about 100nm. The whiskers grew via Vapor-Solid mechanism. Gas supersaturation in the reaction container is the key to prepare high-quality T-ZnO whiskers.