%0 Journal Article %K zinc oxide %K Lasing %K Nanowires semiconductor %K Ordered arrays 2D %A Peidong Yang %A Haoquan Yan %A Samuel S Mao %A Richard E Russo %A Justin Johnson %A Richard Saykally %A Nathan Morris %A Johnny Pham %A Rongrui He %A Heon-Jin Choi %B Advanced Functional Materials %D 2002 %F Laser %G eng %M 139 %N 5 %P 323-331 %R 10.1002/1616-3028(20020517)12:5<323::AID-ADFM323>3.0.CO;2-G %T Controlled growth of ZnO nanowires and their optical properties %V 12 %2 LBNL-51429 %8 05/2002 %! Adv. Funct. Mater. %X

This article surveys recent developments in the rational synthesis of single-crystalline zinc oxide nanowires and their unique optical properties. The growth of ZnO nanowires was carried out in a simple chemical vapor transport and condensation (CVM system. Based on our fundamental understanding of the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) nanowire growth mechanism, different levels of growth controls (including positional, orientational, diameter, and density control) have been achieved. Power-dependent emission has been examined and lasing action was observed in these ZnO nanowires when the excitation intensity exceeds a threshold (~40 kW cm-2). These short-wavelength nanolasers operate at room temperature and the areal density of these nanolasers on substrate readily reaches 1 X 1010 cm-2. The observation of lasing, fabricated mirrors indicates these single-crystalline, well-facetted nanoaction in these nanowire arrays without any wires can function as self-contained optical resonance cavities. This argument is further supported by our recent near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) studies on single nanowires.