Fabrication and photoluminescence properties of highly ordered ZnS nanowire arrays embedded in anodic alumina membrane

doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2007.07.031

Physics Letters A

Volume 372, Issue 3, 14 January 2008, Pages 273-276

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2007.07.031 Get rights and content

Abstract

ZnS nanowire arrays embedded in anodic alumina membranes (AAM) were fabricated from an electrolyte containing ZnCl₂ and elemental S in dimethylsulfoxide. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements show a broadband with three peaks centered at about 353, 425, and 520 nm that are attributed to vacancies or interstitial, sulfur vacancy, and point defects respectively.

Introduction

With the development of electric and optoelectronic devices such as field emission displays and data storage, high density and well-ordered arrays of nanowires are needed. As we all known, AAM produced by electrochemical oxidization of aluminum contains hexagonally ordered porous structure with a uniform size [1]. The diameter of the pores can be changed from 15 to 250 nm, while channel density is in the range of 10¹⁰–10¹² cm⁻². The unique structure features and its thermal and chemical stability make AAM an ideal template for the fabrication of different kinds of nanowires [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15].

Zinc Sulfide (ZnS) is an important semiconductor material with a wide band gap of 3.72 eV for the cubic phase [16] and 3.77 eV for the hexagonal-wurtzite phase [17] at room temperature, and has received much research interest [18], [19], [20], [21]. Therefore, much attention has been focused on the synthesis of ZnS nanowires [22], [23], [24] and nanoribbons [25] or other novel morphologies [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]. However, those methods used to fabricate ZnS nanomaterials need either high temperature or complex process and the nanowires have poor regularity. Here in this Letter, we report a simple and high-yield way to fabricate the ordered ZnS nanowire arrays in AAM by the electrochemical method. By comparison, great highly ordered ZnS nanowire arrays fabricated in this way do not need high temperature, which will be propitious to the practical use.

Section snippets

Experimental details

High-purity (99.999%) aluminum foil was used to fabricate the ordered array of nanopores. Before anodization, the aluminum was degreased with acetone and then annealed at 450 °C for 4 h in the vacuum of about $5 \times 10^{−5} Torr$ . The AAM used in this work was fabricated by two-step anodization process proposed by Masuda et al. [31]. The first anodization process was conducted under constant voltage (40 V) in 0.3 M oxalic acid (H₂C₂O₄) at 10 °C. After 3 h anodization, the sample was immersed in a

Structural characterization

The XRD pattern of the ZnS nanowires embedded in the pores of AAM is shown in Fig. 1. All the peaks match well with Bragg reflection of the standard wurtzite (JCPDS: 75-1534), indicating the generation of ZnS.

The TEM image of the ZnS nanowires prepared by dc electrodeposition in the AAM template with a pore size about 50 nm is shown in Fig. 2A. Fig. 2A reveals the typical TEM images of ZnS nanowires with the diameter of 50 nm. The nanowires have high aspect ratio, and their lengths are about

Conclusion

In summary, highly ordered single-crystal ZnS nanowires have been synthesized in AAM by dc electrodeposition from DMSO solution containing ZnCl₂ and elemental S. XRD, TEM, SEM, and HRTEM results show that the ZnS nanowires have diameters of 50 nm and several micrometers in length. The nanowires have a wurtzite structure. The mechanism for the preparation of ZnS nanowires is also discussed. PL measurements show the UV emission could be caused by vacancies or interstitial states; the blue

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Fabrication and photoluminescence properties of highly ordered ZnS nanowire arrays embedded in anodic alumina membrane

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Experimental details

Structural characterization

Conclusion

Appl. Phys. Lett.

Electrochim. Acta

J. Mag. Mag. Mater.

Inorg. Chem. Commun.

Chem. Phys. Lett.

Solid State Commun.

Science

Adv. Mater.

J. Phys. Chem. B

Appl. Phys. Lett.

Chem. Mater.

Adv. Mater.

Adv. Funct. Mater.

Chem. Mater.

Appl. Phys. Lett.

J. Appl. Phys.

J. Appl. Phys.

Appl. Phys. Lett.

J. Appl. Phys.