title: Sensitivity gains in chemosensing by optical and structural modulation of ordered assembly arrays of ZnO nanorods.
abstract: Nanomaterials and -structures have attracted much attention owing to their applications to ultrasensitive nanodevices. In this work, ordered assembly arrays of ZnO nanorods have been hydrothermally fabricated and used as optical substrates of fluorescence sensors for toxic vapors. The unique fastigiate nanorod assembly combines merits of single fibers and clusters, possessing identical orientation, large surface-to-volume ratio, evanescent transmission, and evanescent coupling. As coated on the assembly arrays, different sensing materials all generated amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) action such that the fluorescence intensity of the narrowed spectrum was 52.4-fold enhanced. Results of sensing experiments indicate that sensors based on the assembly arrays displayed 100% elevated normalized quenching rate and several times longer full-load time compared with reference sensors. This work provides a facile method to fabricate secondary structures of 1D rigid material and presents a new way to design highly sensitive optic sensors. Furthermore, evanescent excitation caused ASE action of fluorescent organics, and the correlative sensitivity gain is of interest in both theoretical research and the applications field.
authors: State Key Lab of Transducer Technology, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China.
authors: Defeng
authors: D
authors: Zhu
authors: Qingguo
authors: Q
authors: He
authors: Qing
authors: Q
authors: Chen
authors: Yanyan
authors: Y
authors: Fu
authors: Chao
authors: C
authors: He
authors: Liqi
authors: L
authors: Shi
authors: Xin
authors: X
authors: Meng
authors: Changmin
authors: C
authors: Deng
authors: Huimin
authors: H
authors: Cao
authors: Jiangong
authors: J
authors: Cheng