Comunicazione
Printing of ZnO seed layers to grow ZnO nanowires on flexible substrates for piezoelectric applications.
Villani F., Loffredo F., Sico G., Montanino M., De Girolamo Del Mauro A., Caso M.F., Pusty M., Jalabert T., Nenna G., Ardila G.
Recently, the industrial interest towards portable and wearable electronics has significantly stimulated the development of innovative devices based on flexible piezoelectric transducers. Among the semiconductors piezoelectric materials, zinc oxide nanowires (ZnO NWs) have particularly attracted the attention of the scientific community especially in sectors as energy and sensing. Anyway, the growth method of ZnO NWs is still crucial to further extend their applications to flexible devices and the main challenges are the process temperatures and the patterning under vacuum free conditions. In the frame of the UE PULSE-COM project we grew by chemical bath deposition high-quality ZnO NWs on polymeric substrates starting from printed seed layers constituted of ZnO nanoparticles. Using Piezoresponse Force Microscopy we observed that the Zn-polar domains are homogeneously distributed at the top surface of the ZnO NWs. The comparison with the results obtained with seed layers deposited by conventional Atomic Layer Deposition method highlights the key benefit of the printing techniques, moving towards the possibility of manufacturing completely vacuum-free flexible piezoelectric devices.