A soft chemistry route to prepare hybrid ZnO nanostructured films with a lamellar structure

A soft chemistry route involving SDS and zinc salt aqueous solutions allowed growing films of hybrid ZnO-based nanostructured plates from a substrate with ZnO crystal seeds. Plates exhibit a long-range ordered lamellar nanostructure formed of thin ZnO layers and SDS bilayers and remarkably, the lamellar phase presents a unique interlayer distance. Moreover, evidence of the ZnO phase in the confined interlamellar space is provided. The hybrid lamellar structure may result from a cooperative organization of surfactants and zinc molecular species into two-dimensional structures involving SDS assembling and charge screening of the surfactant head groups by zinc polycationic species. DS⁻ surfactants not only prevent ZnO crystal growth in the direction of the c-axis, as hydrosoluble complexing agents do, but they also promote the formation of a mesostructured hybrid lamellar phase. The very simple wet chemical route described here may constitute a valuable alternative to the electrodeposition and pulsed laser ablation processes.