In summary, we have synthesized well-aligned ZnO nanorods
by a hydrothermal method and studied the effect of seed layer
thickness on the alignment and morphology of nanorods.
The results reveal that, with decrease of seed layer thickness, the
length of nanorods increases; this indicates that the substrate can
affect the growth rate of nanorods.
The alignment of nanorods was seen to depend on roughness
frequency, crystallinity and grain size of the seed layer so that, with
increase of seed layer thickness, because of decrease of roughness
frequency, there is an increase of grain size and improvement of
crystallinity. In addition the nanorods will be better aligned, but the
diameter of nanorods increases. We have presented a model for
the effect of these parameters on the alignment and diameter of
the ZnO nanorods. These results hold great prospect for
practical applications such as nanodevice fabrication and photoluminescence
properties.