Zinc oxide microtubes prepared by optical thermal evaporation

ZnO single-crystal microtubes were fabricated by an optical thermal evaporation method. The microtubes showed hexagonal hollow morphology with well faceted side surfaces, with cross-sectional dimensions of 20-100 mu m and lengths of several millimetres. Air flow is found to be the critical experimental parameter for the formation of ZnO microtubes with different cross-sections. Under the excitation of 325 nm, photoluminescence of the microtubes was obtained with a peak wavelength of 492 nm.