Growth and luminescence properties of large‐scale zinc oxide nanotetrapods

Abstract

Abstract Large‐scale zinc oxide (ZnO) nanotetrapods have been grown on p‐type Si (111) substrate by oxidizing zinc pieces in air by thermal evaporation technique without the presence of any catalyst. The size and morphology of the nanostructures was found to depend on experimental parameters. The grown nanostructures were characterized by X‐ray Diffraction (XRD), Photoluminescence (PL), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), High Resolution TEM (HRTEM) and analysis of elemental composition was done by Energy Dispersive X‐ray analysis (EDX). The EDX spectrum shows that the grown product contains Zn and O only. The X‐ray diffraction pattern indicates that the microstructure of the obtained products is typical hexagonal wurtzite ZnO. The optical properties were studied using room temperature PL spectroscopy which indicates that the products are of high optical quality and the near band edge UV transition peak intensity increases with decrease in tetrapod size. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)