The effect of oxygen pressure in the synthesis of ZnO nanostructures through thermal evaporation of Zn powder was investigated. The thermal evaporation process was carried out in oxygen ambient for 1 hr at 1,000℃ under different pressures. The oxygen pressure was changed in range of 0.5 ? 900 Torr. Any nanostructure was not formed on the specimens prepared at oxygen pressures lower than 10 Torr. When oxygen pressure was 100 Torr, ZnO nanowires were observed. With increasing the oxygen pressure to 500 Torr, the morphology of ZnO nanostructures changed from wire to tetrapod. For all the samples, room temperature photoluminescence spectra show a strong green emission peak at around 550 nm.

ZnO nanostructures were developed on a Si (100) substrate from powder mixture of ZnO and 5 mol% Pd (ZP-5) as reactants by × sccm oxygen pressures(x= 0, 10, 20, 40). DTA (differential thermal analysis) result shows the Pd(5 mol%)+ZnO mixtured powder(PZ-5) is easily evaporated than pure ZnO powder. The PZ-5 mixtured powder was characterized by DTA to determine the thermal decomposition which was found to be at 800℃, 1,100℃. Weight loss(%) and ICP (inductively coupled plasma) analysis reveal that Zn vaporization is decreased by increased oxygen pressures from the PZ-5 at 1,100℃ for 30 mins. Needle-like ZnO nanostructures array developed from 10 sccm oxygen pressure, was well aligned vertically on the Si substrate at 1,100℃ for 30 mins. The lengths of the Needle-like ZnO nanostructures is about 2 μm with diameters of about 65 nm. The developed ZnO nanostructures exhibited growth direction along [001] with defect-free high crystallinity. It is considered that Zn vaporization is responsible for the growth of Needle-like ZnO nanostructures by controlling the oxygen pressures. The photoluminescence spectra of ZnO nanostructures exhibited stronger 376.7 nm NBE (near band-edge emission) peak and 529.3 nm DLE (deep level energy) peak.