Facile Synthesis of CuO Nanosheet Arrays on Cu Substrate at Room Temperature

The monoclinic CuO nanosheet arrays, disk-like and sheaf-like CuO have been synthesized on Cu substrate by a facile solution route in absence of surfactant at room temperature (20 degrees C). The thickness of sheets and morphology of CuO can be tuned by the concentration and kind of alkali. A plausible growth mechanism was proposed to account for the formation of the nanosheet arrays. Due to the different rate of nucleation and crystal growth the morphology of CuO changed with the concentration of OH-when the same alkali metal hydroxide was used during reaction. The ionic radius of alkali metal hydroxide utilized to generate [Cu(OH)(4)](2-) ions significantly influenced the morphology of CuO. The different cation radius has different charge density, which causes the different formation rate of the copper oxide precipitates.