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Science 9 September 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5741, pp. 1700 - 1704
DOI: 10.1126/science.1116495
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Reports

Conversion of Zinc Oxide Nanobelts into Superlattice-Structured Nanohelices

Pu Xian Gao,1 Yong Ding,1 Wenjie Mai,1 William L. Hughes,1 Changshi Lao,1 Zhong Lin Wang1,2,3*

A previously unknown rigid helical structure of zinc oxide consisting of a superlattice-structured nanobelt was formed spontaneously in a vapor-solid growth process. Starting from a single-crystal stiff nanoribbon dominated by the c-plane polar surfaces, an abrupt structural transformation into the superlattice-structured nanobelt led to the formation of a uniform nanohelix due to a rigid lattice rotation or twisting. The nanohelix was made of two types of alternating and periodically distributed long crystal stripes, which were oriented with their c axes perpendicular to each other. The nanohelix terminated by transforming into a single-crystal nanobelt dominated by nonpolar (Formula) surfaces. The nanohelix could be manipulated, and its elastic properties were measured, which suggests possible uses in electromechanically coupled sensors, transducers, and resonators.

1 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332–0245, USA.
2 College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China.
3 National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, Beijing 100080, China.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zhong.wang{at}mse.gatech.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Piezoelectric nanogenerators based on zinc oxide nanowire arrays..
Z. L. Wang and J. Song (2006)
Science 312, 242-246
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)