Selective growth of inorganic nanomaterials on an oxidized graphene scaffold

A low-temperature solution method was proposed for the site-selective growth of ZnO nanorods (NRs) and Au nanoparticles by making use of the wettability contrast of a graphene/graphene oxide (G/GO) template. Au nanoparticles were found to nucleate and grow selectively over a GO area of the G/GO template. ZnO NRs selectively grew on graphene regions of the template without growing the seeds required for selective growth. We demonstrated diode-like and field emission behaviors of the ZnO NRs selectively grown on a G/GO template, which showed good optical, electrical, and mechanical properties. These materials are potential candidates for the large-scale fabrication of flexible electrical and optical nano-devices.