Annealing a ZnO thin film in different gas ambient under different gas flux results in different nanostructures. Is this based on any specific process or physical process?
This is thermodynamics and kinetics. ZnO is OXIDE. It has equilibrium pO2. And vacancies. When one uses "clean" gases (e.g. bottle N2 may have much more oxygen than Ar), connecting yet with PVC hoses (every meter of the PVC pipe, unless specially protected, sucks oxygen from air). Creating different pO2 in gas phase with different mass flows will defintely affect nanostructure growth and transformation. Only question is, how much and to which extent. You may try pure helium and I guess your get something different.
This is thermodynamics and kinetics. ZnO is OXIDE. It has equilibrium pO2. And vacancies. When one uses "clean" gases (e.g. bottle N2 may have much more oxygen than Ar), connecting yet with PVC hoses (every meter of the PVC pipe, unless specially protected, sucks oxygen from air). Creating different pO2 in gas phase with different mass flows will defintely affect nanostructure growth and transformation. Only question is, how much and to which extent. You may try pure helium and I guess your get something different.
Besides oxygen (referred above by Michael Gasik), humidity is possibly another important reactive vestigial component of the gas being use. Water may reach ~5 ppm in either commercial argon or nitrogen, considering the lower purity grades intended for laboratory use. For the higher purity grades the humidity content is typically
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