Formation of ZnO nanocrystalline via facile non-hydrolytic route

The emerging of nanotechnology lately has contributes to a numerous study in nano discipline especially in synthesizing nanomaterial, describing the mechanism and examining its behavior as to further utilizing it into a device. One of interesting material to be study is Zinc Oxide (ZnO) which is a well known (II-VI) compound semiconductor possessing hexagonal wurtzite structure. It has receives a lot of attention due to its wide band gap (3.37 eV), high exciton binding energy (60 meV at room temperature), transparent conductivity, bio-compatibility and bio-safety enabling ZnO to be employed as an optoelectronic device, gas sensor, catalyst, solar cell and biomaterial. ZnO nanostructures such as nanorod, nanobelt, nanoflake, nanoflowers and nanoparticles exhibit different properties from the bulk. Hence, intensively research on the preparative techniques has been reported by many groups. Techniques based on physical vapor deposition such as pulsed laser deposition (PLD), sputtering and thermal decomposition usually require expensive equipment, highly cost maintenance and limited to small scale production. Whereas, wet chemical synthesis such as sol-gel, hydrothermal, sonochemical and precipitation often yields large-scale production, low cost equipment and inexpensive raw material. This paper presents a study on the formation of ZnO nanocrystalline with the addition of Diethylamine (DEA) as a stabilizing agent via oxidizing Zn powder in nonaqueous solvent and its influence on the structural and optical properties of ZnO.