Zinc-blende ZnO and its role in nucleating wurtzite tetrapods and twinned nanowires

In this letter, the authors directly observed the zinc-blende (ZB) ZnO core in the initial formation of wurtzite (WZ) ZnO tetrapods. The formation of the wurtzite (011¯3) twined nanowires is proposed based on the ZB core. Simple bonding density calculation shows that the wurtzite nanowires with {011¯0} side surfaces have the lowest surface energy. A favorable choice of WZ phase over ZB when forming nanostructures is likely to be a result of surface energy minimization. This could be the reason that ZnS nanowires take WZ rather than ZB.