Synthesis, microstructure and photoluminescence of well-aligned ZnO nanorods on Si substrate

Abstract: Well-aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods were densely grown on Si substrate using ZnO thin-film seed layer without any catalysts and/or additives by a simple solid–vapour phase thermal sublimation technique. The growth mechanism can be interpreted as self-catalyst of zinc particles based on vapour–solid (VS) mechanism. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) image and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern confirmed that the single-crystalline growth of the nanorods were preferentially along c-axis of hexagonal crystal system. High-crystal quality ZnO nanorods with strong near band edge emission centred at 380nm can be achieved on Si substrate by the introduction of sufficient oxygen during the nanorod growth processing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]