Nano-grinding zinc oxide for electronic applications

Abstract

Planetary ball milling (PBM) is a type of high energy ball milling, which is a top down technique for fabricating nanomaterials. PBM was used to fabricate zinc oxide nanoparticles by nano-grinding, followed by thin film device fabrication via drop casting, and characterization of electrical properties such as conductance and photosensitivity. Grinding parameters such as speed were varied to produce different batches of material, and thermal treatment was carried out, to form films with different properties and an analysis of the effect of these factors was attempted. Increasing the grinding speed was found to generally reduce the value of conductance of the thin films. Zinc oxide was also milled with indium tin oxide in isopropyl alcohol, to attempt mechanochemical composite formation with the zinc oxide nanoparticles. The films of this material showed increased conductance and sensitivity to light. Some avenues of extending this work were suggested, including various device structures and fabrication techniques.