Forming extremely smooth ZnO thin film on silicon substrates for growth of large and well-aligned ZnO rods with the hydrothermal method

Sol–gel zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films generally have non-uniform stripes. After annealing at high temperatures, these thin films are rough and granular. When ZnO rods are grown on such rough and non-uniform surface with the hydrothermal method, collimation, crystalline structure, and defect density are very poor. Here we explore a method to solve this problem. The ZnO thin film is first coated with an Au layer to prohibit the vertical extension of crystallization during the annealing period. As a result, the surface morphology of ZnO thin film is very flat and uniform after annealing. Afterwards, the ZnO rods are grown on the flat and uniform thin film, which gives rise to ZnO rods with very good collimation and crystalline structure. The extremely flat ZnO thin film even enables the fabrication of patterned ZnO rod arrays with regular shapes through lithography.