Effects of the experimental conditions on the growth of crystalline ZnSe nano-needles by pulsed laser deposition

Crystalline ZnSe nano-needles have been grown by pulsed laser deposition on Ni-coated substrates. In order to study the mechanism for the growth of ZnSe nano-needles, the experiment conditions including catalyst layer, substrate material, substrate temperature and deposition duration were changed respectively. The catalyst layer plays an important role in the growth of ZnSe nano-needles. The substrate material and substrate temperature also strongly affect the morphologies and structures of the as-grown ZnSe nano-crystals. On 300–400°C Ni-coated silicon (100) substrates, the crystalline ZnSe nano-needles can be grown densely with the middle diameters of about 20–80 nm, and the lengths of 100–400 nm. Two models for the growth of the ZnSe nano-needles and sphere-leading nano-wires under different substrate temperatures are proposed and verified experimentally.