Positron Annihilation Study of Porous ZnO Synthesized with Soft Template

摘要

Porous ZnO were synthesized with soft template method using zinc acetate Zn(CH_3COO)_2·2H_2O as precursor and block copolymer F127 as the surfactant. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements indicate that the ZnO sample contains large pores with mean diameter of about 30 nm. However, both small-angle X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscope measurements indicate that the pore ordering is missing. Positron lifetime measurements reveal two long lifetime components in the porous ZnO. The longest lifetime τ4 (75ns) corresponds to ortho-positronium (o-Ps) annihilation in large pores. The pore size estimated from τ4 is about 10.6 nm. This is much smaller than that estimated from Nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements. In addition, the intensity I4 is only about 2.2%. This is probably due to the chemical quenching and/or inhibition of positronium formation induced by ZnO, which reduces o-Ps lifetime and intensity, and leads to under estimation of the pore size.