Nucleation mechanism of the seed of tetrapod ZnO nanostructures

Tetrapod zinc oxide (T-ZnO) nanorods have been synthesized by evaporation and recondensation of metallic Zn under ambient conditions. The total sizes of the T-ZnO nanostructures range from 300 nm to 15 mu m with leg diameters of about 30 to 650 nm, depending on the deposition temperature. A detailed high-resolution electron microscopy analysis showed that the center core of T-ZnO nanorods consists of four hexagonal grains with a twinlike relation. The nucleation and growth mechanism has been generated on the basis of energy considerations during a phase transition from a fullerenelike ZnO cluster to a nanometer-sized tetrahedron, which is directly visible in our high-resolution transmission electron microscopy investigations. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.