Ricerc@Sapienza

The present research is focused on the synthesis of hexagonal ZnO wurtzite nanorods for the decoration of commercially available electrospun nylon nanofibers. The growth of ZnO was performed by a hydrothermal technique and for the first time on commercial electrospun veils. The growth step was optimized by adopting a procedure with the refresh of growing solution each hour of treatment (Method 1) and with the maintenance of a specific growth solution volume for the entire duration of the treatment (Method 2).

Electromagnetic fields interacting with microscopic structural features in a composite material provide emerging optical properties that surpass those offered by the individual components. However, composite materials can be generally lossy due to the scattering effects induced by inhomogeneities at the interfaces between different compounds. To overcome such problems, complicated and costly manufacturing procedures, such as top-down approaches, are generally required.

Due to its piezoelectric and semiconductive properties, ZnO is actively investigated for the development of innovative nanostructures for applications ranging from piezotronics to energy harvesting. In the present paper we develop a full model for the non-linear piezoelectricity in ZnO nanowires, where both direct and inverse non-linear piezoelectric effects are accounted for. The preliminary results show for the first time the importance of non-linear effects on the electro-mechanic behavior of nanowires especially when used for piezotronic applications.