PREPARATION OF 1-3 CONNECTIVITY COMPOSITE FILMS OF WELL-ALIGNED ZnO WHISKER ARRAYS WITH AN ORGANIC RESIN

Abstract

Zinc oxide whisker arrays well-aligned along [0001] direction have been grown on the substrates of glass and single crystal silicon by atmospheric metal organic chemical vapor deposition method (MOCVD). The SEM observation indicated that the whiskers were quite uniform in length and diameter. The whisker arrays were very dense, and the gap among the whiskers was less than 1 μm. The array materials were proposed as the component to prepare 1-3 piezoelectric composite film in-situ. Epoxy resin was used as the matrix materials. The key points to prepare the composites are how to make the resin enter the array and control a suitable thickness of the resin films. Several approaches were studied. The results showed that the best was the vertical sucking method. The SEM observations indicated that the thickness was well controlled as almost same as the length of the whiskers, and the resin perfectly entered the array without pore. The 1-3 piezoelectric composite film has great potential applications in micro sensor and actuator arrays.