Surface polarity shielding and hierarchical ZnO Nano-architectures produced using sequential hydrothermal crystal synthesis and thin film atomic layer deposition.

Three-dimensional nanoscale constructs are finding applications in many emerging fields, including energy generation and storage, advanced water and air purification, and filtration strategies, as well as photocatalytic and biochemical separation systems. Progress in these important technologies will benefit from improved understanding of fundamental principles underlying nanostructure integration and bottom-up growth processes. While previous work has identified hydrothermal synthesis conditions to produce nanoscale ZnO rods, sheets, and plates, strategies to systematically integrate these elements into more complex nano-architectures are not previously described. This article illustrates that amorphous nanoscale coatings formed by atomic layer deposition (ALD) are a viable means to modulate and screen the surface polarity of ZnO crystal faces and thereby regulate the growth morphology during successive hydrothermal nanocrystal synthesis. Using this new strategy, this work demonstrates direct integration and sequential assembly of nanocrystalline rods and sheets to produce complex three-dimensional geometric forms, where structure evolution is achieved by modifying the surface growth condition, keeping the hydrothermal growth chemistry unchanged. Therefore, rational planning of seed layer and feature spacing geometries may allow researchers to engineer, at the nanoscale, complex three-dimensional crystalline and semicrystalline constructs for a wide range of future applications.