KCS

Compared with the discovery of a totally new material, hybrid materials could present substantial opportunities for achieving new types of materials with versatile and tailor-made properties. In particular, nanometer-scale hybridization may enable unique and fascinating properties and high-performances superior to those of their counterpart individual components and/or bulk materials. Here, I will present a controlled synthesis of 3D nanoarchitectural systems based on nanorods, nanotubes and graphene as emerging building blocks for future electronics and photonics. The first type of 1D-2D hybrids can be achieved by growing regular arrays of ZnO nanorods on 2D graphene layers transferred to the transparent and/or flexible substrates. The hybrid nanostructures exhibited the outstanding electrical conductivity, optical transparency, and mechanical flexibility, which, combined with new optical functions inherited from the ZnO nanorods, suggests a wide spectrum of applications. The second type of 1D-2D hybrid can be fabricated by mounting 2D graphene sheets directly on the top of the nanorods/pillars to develop novel light emitting diodes, laser diodes and sensors.