The impact of morphology upon the radiation hardness of ZnO layers

Abstract

It is shown that ZnO nanorods and nanodots grown by MOCVD exhibit enhanced radiation hardness against high energy heavy ion irradiation as compared to bulk layers. The decrease of the luminescence intensity induced by 130 MeV Xe(23+) irradiation at a dose of 1.5 × 10(14) cm(-2) in ZnO nanorods is nearly identical to that induced by a dose of 6 × 10(12) cm(-2) in bulk layers. The damage introduced by irradiation is shown to change the nature of electronic transitions responsible for luminescence. The change of excitonic luminescence to the luminescence related to the tailing of the density of states caused by potential fluctuations occurs at an irradiation dose around 1 × 10(14) cm(-2) and 5 × 10(12) cm(-2) in nanorods and bulk layers, respectively. More than one order of magnitude enhancement of radiation hardness of ZnO nanorods grown by MOCVD as compared to bulk layers is also confirmed by the analysis of the near-bandgap photoluminescence band broadening and the behavior of resonant Raman scattering lines. The resonant Raman scattering analysis demonstrates that ZnO nanostructures are more radiation-hard as compared to nanostructured GaN layers. High energy heavy ion irradiation followed by thermal annealing is shown to be a way for the improvement of the quality of ZnO nanorods grown by electrodeposition and chemical bath deposition.

Hydrothermal treatment for the marked structural and optical quality improvement of ZnO nanowire arrays deposited on lightweight flexible substrates

“…One-dimensional (1-D) nanostructures of semiconductors have attracted great interest during the last decade for advanced functional applications due to additional and improved properties compared to bulk films related to high surface to volume ratio, inherent anisotropy, and quantum confinement of charge carriers [1][2][3][4]. They are the building blocks for interesting emerging applications such as transparent UV protection films, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), room-temperature lasers, lightemitting-diodes (LEDs), flexible transparent field-effect-transistors (FETs), spintronic devices, smart cards, displays, ultraviolet (UV), and gas sensors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…They are the building blocks for interesting emerging applications such as transparent UV protection films, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), room-temperature lasers, lightemitting-diodes (LEDs), flexible transparent field-effect-transistors (FETs), spintronic devices, smart cards, displays, ultraviolet (UV), and gas sensors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Many papers have reported the growth of ZnO nanorod (NR) and nanowire (NW) arrays on inorganic rigid substrates.…”

Guided mode lasing in ZnO nanorod structures

“…Si and silica substrates were used in these growth processes. The microstructure has been grown on a silica substrate covered by a seed ZnO film produced by MOCVD as described elsewhere [19,20]. The horizontal double furnace MOCVD set-up consists of a source furnace and a main furnace as illustrated in the schematic diagram of Fig.…”

High speed atmospheric plasma deposition of transparent ZnO thin films without post-deposition annealing

“…High quality ZnO thin films can be obtained with a wide variety of deposition techniques. Molecular beam epitaxy, sputtering, pulsed laser deposition and chemical vapor deposition are the most frequently encountered in literature [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Since a few years, alternative techniques have been developed using non-thermal plasmas generated at atmospheric pressure via various types of electrical discharges.…”