Elsevier

Thin Solid Films

Volume 518, Issue 20, 2 August 2010, Pages 5687-5689
Thin Solid Films

Structural and photoluminescence properties of aligned Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns synthesized by the hydrothermal method

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2010.04.031Get rights and content

Abstract

Aligned Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns were synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. Based on the analyses of the X-ray diffraction and photoluminescence result, it could be confirmed that the Sb has successfully doped in the ZnO crystal lattices to form an accepter energy level. At 85 K, the recombination of the acceptor-bound exciton was predominant in PL spectrum, which was attributed to the transition of the (SbZn2VZn) complex bound exciton. The acceptor binding energy had been calculated to be 123 meV.

Introduction

One-dimensional (1D) materials such as nanowires, nanotubes, and nanorods have drawn great attention in recent years [1], [2]. Among them, ZnO has been widely studied because of its large exciton binding energy (60 meV) and large band gap energy (3.37 eV), which make ZnO have a potential applications in nanodevices [3], [4]. To realize nanodevices, p-type ZnO is essential. Many dopants, such as N, P, As, Li, have been used to fabricate p-ZnO thin films and nanostructures. But there is no repeatable and wide-accepted method to overcome the p-type doping difficulty for ZnO. Recently, Limpijumnong et al. proposed a model for the large-size-mismatch group-V dopants in ZnO based on a first-principles calculation [5]. It has been predicted that Sb would occupy the Zn site and simultaneously induce two Zn vacancies to form a complex (SbZn–2VZn) serving as an acceptor. Base on this theory, many groups fabricated Sb-doped p-type ZnO thin films by using chemical vapor deposition [6], pulsed-laser deposition [7], and molecular beam epitaxy [8] methods.

In this paper we tried to synthesize Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns by a hydrothermal method and to study the effects of doping on the structure and optical properties in ZnO nanostructures. Because ZnO nanorods fabricated by the hydrothermal method were almost single crystalline, we could understand the essential physical aspect for ZnO doping. There were already some reports about the N, P, As, Sb-doped ZnO nanostructures by using the vapor deposition and diffusion methods. But there were few reports about the doping in ZnO by the hydrothermal method.

Section snippets

Experimental details

Before the growth of ZnO nanorods, ZnO film with the thickness of 100 nm and (002) orientation was deposited onto the Si substrate by the magnetron sputtering. 0.01 M zinc acetate [Zn(Ac)2·H2O], 0.01 M hexamethylenetetramine, and 0.0005 M SbCl3 were dissolved in a mixed solvent of ethanol and water (18.2  cm) in a 4:1 volume ratio to form a 50.0 ml solution. Then 30 ml of this mixture were transferred to a Teflon-lined stainless autoclave of 50 ml capacity. The as-grown ZnO film/Si substrate was put

Results and discussion

The morphologies of the as-grown undoped ZnO nanorods and Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns were investigated using SEM. As shown in Fig. 1(a), quasi-aligned undoped ZnO nanorods with well-defined facets on the coated Si substrate. The nanorods have typical diameters of about 100 nm with lengths of a few micrometers. Fig. 1(b) shows rough and uniform Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns. The diameters of the nanocolumns range in 250500 nm and their lengths range in 12 μm. From the insert of Fig. 1(b), the EDS

Conclusions

In conclusion, we used hydrothermal method to synthesize the reproducible Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns. The XRD pattern showed ZnO with a hexagonal wurtzite structure oriented in the c-axis direction. The optical properties of Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns were characterized by low-temperature and temperature-dependence PL spectra. The PL spectra at 85 K, the peaks position and linewidth of Sb-doped ZnO nanocolumns were obviously different to the undoped ZnO nanorods. Compared to the undoped ZnO nanorods

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10647105, 60670659), the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 60336020 and 50532050, the “973” program under Grant No. 2006CB604906, the Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 60429403, 60676059, 60506014, 50402016, 10674133, 10804071 and the Project of Science Development Planning of Jilin

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