Size dependence of dielectric constant in a single pencil-like ZnO nanowire

Ya Yang; Wen Guo; Xueqiang Wang; Zengze Wang; Junjie Qi; Yue Zhang

doi:10.1021/nl204353t

Size dependence of dielectric constant in a single pencil-like ZnO nanowire

Nano Lett. 2012 Apr 11;12(4):1919-22. doi: 10.1021/nl204353t. Epub 2012 Mar 22.

Authors

Ya Yang¹, Wen Guo, Xueqiang Wang, Zengze Wang, Junjie Qi, Yue Zhang

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, Department of Materials Physics and Chemistry, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China.

PMID: 22432548
DOI: 10.1021/nl204353t

Abstract

Scanning conductance microscopy (SCM) is used to measure the dielectric constant of a single pencil-like zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire with the diameters ranging from 85 to 285 nm. As the diameter decreases, the dielectric constant of ZnO nanowire is found to decrease from 6.4 to 2.7, which is much smaller than that of the bulk ZnO of 8.66. A core-shell composite nanowire model in terms of the surface dielectric weakening effect is proposed to explore the origin of the size dependence of dielectric constant, and the experimental results are well explained.