Structural and optical properties of electrochemically deposited ZnO nanorods by using graphene oxide and ITO as substrate material: a comparative study

The present work reports the comparative study of structural and optical properties of ZnO Nanorods grown on Graphene Oxide (GO) and ITO. For this purpose, GO has been successfully synthesized via Hummer's method while electrochemical method has been used for the synthesis of ZnO nanorods. The structural and optical properties of the as-grown samples were studied using FESEM, EDX, XRD, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy. An improvement in density of ZnO nanorods with hexagonal structure is indicated by the FESEM micrographs. XRD analysis confirms that crystal structure of ZnO nanorods is not significantly disturbed by GO, in addition a reduction in lattice strain has been observed for the samples grown on GO. Raman and FTIR spectroscopy has also been performed to probe the structural integration of ZnO crystal structure and the results are in consensus with that of XRD analysis. The study indicates the potential application of GO as substrate material for ZnO nanorods based devices.