  In this paper, temporal growth and morphological evolution of ZnO
nano-colloids were studied by in-situ UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and
Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) respectively. Nucleation of the
nanoparticles was observed to occur within 10 sec in the solution after mixing
the precursors and there was not any significant change in morphology observed
with an increase in growth time. The morphological change was found to depend
on interfacial energy curvature. Decoupling of nucleation and growth parameters
was observed in the case of the atomically unbalanced reaction while aging of
the nanoparticles was found in atomically balanced reaction respectively. The
growth of nano-particles was modeled using the Phase-field model (PFM) and
compared with the present in-situ growth process.
