TY - JOUR AB - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to synthesize porous zinc oxide (ZnO) by means of strain etching/wet chemical etching method with the use of 0.5% of nitric acid (HNO3) etchant. The structural and surface morphological properties of the samples are accessed by using X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterization techniques.Design/methodology/approach– ZnO samples used in this work were deposited on the p‐Si (111) substrates by using radio frequency (RF) sputtering technique. Wet chemical etching processes with the use of 0.5% HNO3 etchant was applied on these samples in order to obtain porous structure. The porous ZnO samples are characterized by means of XRD and SEM to access their structural and surface morphological properties.Findings– The XRD and SEM cross‐sectional measurements revealed that the thickness of the etched ZnO thin films is proportional to the etching time. SEM micrographs show that the surface morphology of ZnO changes over etching time. On the other hand, XRD results indicate that the crystallite sizes of the ZnO(002) decreases when the etching time increases.Originality/value– The paper shows how porous ZnO thin films have been successfully synthesized by using simple wet chemical etching. SEM images reveal that this method is reliable when producing porous structure ZnO surfaces. VL - 29 IS - 2 SN - 1356-5362 DO - 10.1108/13565361211237699 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/13565361211237699 AU - Chai Im Ang AU - Lu Tze Jian Leonard AU - Poh Kok Ooi AU - Yaakob Suriani AU - Chin Guan Ching AU - Sha Shiong Ng AU - Hassan Zainuriah AU - Abu Hassan Haslan AU - Johar Abdullah Mat PY - 2012 Y1 - 2012/01/01 TI - Fabrication of porous ZnO thin films using wet chemical etching with 0.5% HNO3 T2 - Microelectronics International PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 96 EP - 100 Y2 - 2024/04/18 ER -