Nanowire array gratings with ZnO combs

Diffraction gratings are mainly manufactured by mechanical ruling, interference lithography, or resin replication, which generally require expensive equipment, complicated procedures, and a stable environment. We describe the controlled growth of self-organized microscale ZnO comb gratings by a simple one-step thermal evaporation and condensation method. The ZnO combs consist of an array of very uniform, perfectly aligned, evenly spaced and long single-crystalline ZnO nanowires or nanobelts with periods in the range of 0.2 to 2 mu m. Diffraction experiments show that the ZnO combs can function as a tiny three-beam divider that may find applications in miniaturized integrated optics such as three-beam optical pickup systems.