Facile Synthesis of ZnO Nanorods/GO Composite and Its Optical Performance.

The ZnO nanorods/GO composite was fabricated by facilely covering monolayer or few-layer graphene oxide (GO) film on the uniformly distributed ZnO nanorods, which was synthesized on Si substrate using a solution method. The as-synthesized products were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), as well as X-ray diffraction (XRD). The photoluminescence (PL) measurement indicates that the ZnO nanorods have a strong ultraviolet (UV) emission centered at ~391 nm attributed to the recombination of free excitons and a defect-related visible emission centered at ~530 nm. After the nanorods were covered with GO film, the PL intensity of the composite is quenched compared to that of the bare one at the same excitation condition. The fluorescence quenching mechanism suggests that there is an interfacial charge-transfer process between the excited ZnO and the GO film, and the composite fabricated in this experiment be possible to improve the photocatalysis performance.