title: Interaction of hydrogen with zinc oxide nanorods: why the spacing is important.
abstract: Hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods show high interaction rates with H₂ when the spacing between adjacent nanorods decreases. Density functional theory calculations showed the interaction between nanorod surfaces in-registry is attractive at separations < 5 Å, while it is repulsive for out-of-registry alignments, indicating that uniform nanorods grown with their faces aligned out-of-registry are not likely to fuse due to the repulsion between the surfaces. The separation of 5 Å was found to be sufficient for H₂ to adsorb between the surfaces, resulting in a transfer of charge from H(2) to the surface, consistent with the measured increase in conductivity. This explains the ability of hydrogen to adsorb on closely spaced nanorods.
authors.affiliation: Applied Physics, School of Applied Sciences, RMIT University, VIC 3001, Australia. michelle.spencer@rmit.edu.au
authors.forename: Michelle J S
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yarovsky
authors.forename: Wojtek
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wlodarski
authors.forename: Kourosh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kalantar-Zadeh