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CH, Chang YH, Lee CS, Chen KH, Chen LC: Improved broadband and quasi-omnidirectional anti-reflection properties with biomimetic silicon nanostructures. Nat Nanotechnol 2007, 2:770–774.CrossRef 14. Moharam MG, Gaylord TK: Rigorous coupled-wave analysis of planar-grating diffraction. J Opt Soc Am 1981, 71:811–818.CrossRef 15. Lee JM, Kim BI: Thermal dewetting of Pt thin film: Etch-masks for the fabrication of semiconductor nanostructures. Mater Sci Eng A 2007, find more 449–451:769–773.CrossRef Competing interests The authors declare that they do not have competing interests. Authors’ contributions JBK carried out most of the experimental works associated with fabrication and characterization of samples, analyzed the results, and prepared the manuscript. CIY proposed the original idea and helped in preparing

the manuscript. YHL helped in fabrication and characterization of samples. SR helped in characterization of samples and preparation of the manuscript. YTL developed the conceptual framework and supervised the whole work, and finalized the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Over the last decade, zinc oxide (ZnO) was intensively studied due to its promising catalytic, electrical, wetting, and optical

properties [1–3], shading light on several technological applications, including photovoltaic cells [4], nanogenerators [5, 6], field-effect transistors [7], gas [8] Methamphetamine and strain sensors [9], and other electronic nanodevices [10]. It is a unique material exhibiting wide bandgap (3.37 eV) [11], large exciton binding energy (60 meV) [12], and low lasing threshold, applicable to optoelectronics, sensors, transducers, and nanogenerators [13–16]. Several efforts were therefore focused on the preparation and characterization of ZnO materials at the sub-micrometric scale and with different morphologies, including micro- and nanowires, multipods, and nanoparticles [2]. One-dimensional structures can be easily connected to electrodes for exploiting the semiconducting properties and enabling their study as chemical or biological sensors [17, 18]. In particular, ZnO wires were used for constructing pH-sensing devices, since the surface electrical charge density of ZnO changes with pH in electrolyte solutions.