Spin-coated and sputtered substrates show similar features on the transmission signal for the galvanostatic and pulsed-current processes used. On the contrary, both processes have a significant difference on ITO substrate, with the one obtained by pulsed current having better transmission. The ZnO obtained revealed a poor crystalline nanostructure when the potentiostatic growth method was applied for the three substrates used. This effect can be seen in the optical behavior of the transmission curves where the optical bandgap is not clearly defined due to electronic defects inside the structure. The best optical result is for the spin-coated

substrate, in agreement with the AFM analysis (Figure 3), which shows

a homogeneous nanostructure. Optical bandgap Optical bandgap of ZnO selleck compound has been reported from 3.27 eV for the single crystal to 3.55 eV for the electrodeposited films [21, 22]. The electrodeposited ZnO films or nanostructures exhibit bandgap between 3.3 and 3.55 eV, depending on the structural morphologies and crystal defects. Assuming an absorption coefficient α∝−lnT (T is transmittance) corresponding to a selleck chemical direct bandgap of ZnO, [23] the bandgap of the ZnO nanowires is estimated from the linear fit in the plot of (−lnT × hν)2 against the energy hν, as shown in Figure 6 and Table 2 for each sample. Analysis is not presented for potentiostatic samples because the absorption band edge is not sufficiently well defined to be considered for the linear fit, as was described in the optical characterization. Figure 6 Optical bandgap of ZnO nanowire BI2536 array. Plot of (−lnT × hν)2 vs photon energy of ZnO nanowire array growth by galvanostatic and pulsed-current

electrodeposition on ITO, sputtered ZnO, and spin-coated ZnO as substrate. Table 2 Optical bandgap for ZnO nanorods obtained by electrodeposition on different substrates Sample Eg (eV) Pulsed current on ITO 3.51 Galvanostatic on ITO 3.33 Pulsed current on spin-coated ZnO 3.51 Galvanostatic on spin-coated ZnO 3.51 Pulsed current on sputtered ZnO 3.46 Galvanostatic on sputtered ZnO 3.56 The optical bandgap for all samples obtained is in agreement with the theoretical ZnO bandgap [24], although the results show that galvanostatic electrodeposition on selleck chemicals ITO substrate is quite different from the other ones, which was expected from microstructure analysis. Conclusions In the present work, the influence of the nucleant layer on the process of vertically aligned ZnO nanowires grown using electrochemical reactions has been described and analyzed. It can be concluded that the nucleant layer has a crucial role in the morphological, structural, and optical properties of the electrodeposited material. In this sense, the spin-coated substrate has demonstrated to be the more easily controlled in order to obtain optimal electrodeposited nanostructures. Acknowledgements We thank Prof. A.