An innovative and promising alternative for future electronics is the integration of semiconducting metal oxide nanonets in devices.
Zinc Oxide possesses piezoelectric properties which enhance drastically upon entering nano-dimensions. This thesis presents for the first time piezoelectric characteristics of randomly oriented 2D semiconducting nanowire network (NN). Synthesis of ZnO NWs was conducted using hydrothermal method with varied diameters (20 – 300 nm) which were then employed for the formation of nanonets. In a second step, 20 nm diameter NWs integrated into NN were chosen for fabrication of flexible resistors owing to their enhanced piezoelectric characteristics. These flexible resistors were exposed to varied magnitude of strain to study evolution of semiconducting nanonet functional characteristics.
The modification in lattice and morphological behaviour of these semiconducting nanonets was studied using in situ-XRD and in situ-SEM respectively under exposure of increasing amplitude dynamic strain.
Eventually, studies were conducted to determine the development in electrical behaviour of devices upon application of both static and dynamic strain under varied orientation and magnitude of strain. Finally, combining the lattice, morphological observations with electrical measurements under strain will give us better piezoelectric behaviour understanding of the ZnO-nanonet based devices.