Effects of Li or Li/Mg dopants on the orientation of ZnO nanorods prepared by sol–gel method

The ZnO nanorods have been prepared on lime-glass substrate by doping Li+ and/or Mg2+ using a sol–gel method. The results show that the degree of C-orientation of Li/Mg doped ZnO nanorods is much high compared with that of Li doped and undoped ones. The individual nanorod exhibits an asymmetric hexagonal morphology with uniform diameter (50–80 nm) along its length (300 nm), and few abnormal ZnO rods (with about 3 μm length) can be observed on the surface in the SEM images. The growth mechanism of ZnO nanorods has also been discussed.