Zinc oxide(ZnO) micro/nanocrystals are grown via thermal evaporation of ZnO powder mixed with Mn powder, which is used as a reducing agent. The ZnO/Mn powder mixture produces ZnO micro/nanocrystals with diverse morphologies such as rods, wires, belts, and spherical shapes. Rod-shaped ZnO micro/nanocrystals, which have an average diameter of 360 nm and an average length of about 12 μm, are fabricated at a temperature as low as 800 °C due to the reducibility of Mn. Wireand belt-like ZnO micro/nanocrystals with length of 3 μm are formed at 900 °C and 1,000 °C. When the growth temperature is 1,100 °C, spherical shaped ZnO crystals having a diameter of 150 nm are synthesized. X-ray diffraction patterns reveal that ZnO had hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure. A strong ultraviolet emission peak and a weak visible emission band are observed in the cathodoluminescence spectra of the rod- and wire-shaped ZnO crystals, while visible emission is detected for the spherical shaped ZnO crystals.

ZnO micro/nanocrystals with different morphologies were synthesized by thermal evaporation of various zinc source materials in an air atmosphere. Zinc acetate, zinc carbonate and zinc iodide were used as the source materials. No catalysts or substrates were used in the synthesis of the ZnO crystals. The scanning electron microscope(SEM) image showed that the morphology of ZnO crystals was strongly dependent on the source materials, which suggests that source material is one of the key factors in controlling the morphology of the obtained ZnO crystals. Tetrapods, nanogranular shaped crystals, spherical particles and crayon-shaped crystals were obtained using different source materials. The X-ray diffraction(XRD) pattern revealed that the all the ZnO crystals had hexagonal wurtzite crystalline structures. An ultraviolet emission was observed in the cathodoluminescence spectrum of the ZnO crystals prepared via thermal evaporation of Zn powder. However, a strong green emission centered at around 500 nm was observed in the cathodoluminescence spectra of the ZnO crystals prepared using zinc salts as the source materials.