Growing ZnO nanowires through electrochemical deposition for spintronic applications with metal-insulator-metal structures as tunnel junctions
Abstract
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Nowadays, the research for spintronic materials has aroused extensive interest. Spintronic devices offer the possibility of enhanced functionality, higher speed, and reduced power consumption and show great superiority to conventional electronic materials in many applications. Zinc Oxide has been proved to have noticeable performance of spin properties after spin-polarization that can served as building blocks for various sophisticated field such as information storage, photovoltaic devices and thermoelectric devices. Several works has been reported on synthesis of ZnO nanowire (NW) being reported recently, however, most of them focus on vapor phase growth methods [6][7]. We are seeking a low- cost, high-quality, fabrication method which is also easy-controlled. In this work, we researched the electrochemical deposition method of synthesizing zinc oxide nanostructures on inorganic substrates. By following up with microscopic analysis, we imaged the morphology and hypothesized the growing mechanism. Presenting a systematic study of the effect of the experimental parameters (concentration, growing voltage, and growing time) on the morphology. The purity of the ZnO nanowires has been characterized by Auger electron spectroscopy and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. We also use Optical profilometer to present 3-dimension image for the nanostructure of the sample We utilized the simple metallic salt solution with support solute as the electrolyte and an n-type (100) silicon wafer coated by sliver as the substrate. The thermal bath and annealing post-treatment had been applied to ensure the best morphology we can get.
Degree
M.S.
Thesis Department
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