Bio assisted morphological tuning of zinc oxide nanoparticles for photonic applications

Abstract

Nanoparticles are one of the essential components of current newlinetechnological development. These nanoparticles are used in almost every field newlineof science and technology, where systems are constantly seeking newlineimprovements. To satisfy the higher demands, nanoparticles with tunable newlineproperties must be developed under atmospheric conditions using nontoxic newlinechemicals. Biosynthesis is one of the approaches to achieve these goals newlinewherein the nanoparticles are prepared in the presence of biomolecules. These newlinebiomolecules act as reducers, capping agents, or templates for synthesis. The newlineself-assembling nature of the biomolecules is explored in the synthesis. It is a newlinefacile, inexpensive, and time-effective method for synthesizing nanoparticles newlinewith tunable properties. Biosynthesis reduces the complexity of techniques newlineand controls the morphology and size of the nanoparticles so that a large newlinevariety of nanostructures with tunable properties can easily be synthesized. The commonly used biomolecules for the synthesis are lichen, bacteria, newlinealgae, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins. Bioconjugation also newlineoffers biofunctionalities to the prepared material, extending the applications newlineinto the biomedical field. Among the different metal oxide nanoparticles, zinc newlineoxide (ZnO) nanoparticles are an important class of materials with increasing newlineresearch interest due to their wide bandgap (3.37 eV) and significant exciton newlinebinding energy (60 meV). The unique optical, thermal, and biological newlineproperties can be applied to nanofluids, optoelectronic devices, energy newlineharvesting devices, photocatalysis, and the textile industry. newline newline