The Luminescent Inhomogeneity and the Distribution of Zinc Vacancy-Related Acceptor-Like Defects in N-Doped ZnO Microrods

Zhengrong Yao; Kun Tang; Zhonghua Xu; Jiandong Ye; Shunming Zhu; Shulin Gu

doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1736-7

The Luminescent Inhomogeneity and the Distribution of Zinc Vacancy-Related Acceptor-Like Defects in N-Doped ZnO Microrods

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2016 Dec;11(1):511. doi: 10.1186/s11671-016-1736-7. Epub 2016 Nov 22.

Authors

Zhengrong Yao^{1

2}, Kun Tang³, Zhonghua Xu¹, Jiandong Ye¹, Shunming Zhu¹, Shulin Gu⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
² School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
³ School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. ktang@nju.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. slgu@nju.edu.cn.

Abstract

Vertically aligned N-doped ZnO microrods with a hexagonal symmetry were fabricated via the chemical vapor transport with abundant N₂O as both O and N precursors. We have demonstrated the suppression of the zinc interstitial-related shallow donor defects and have identified the zinc vacancy-related shallow and deep acceptor states by temperature variable photoluminescence in O-rich growth environment. Through spatially resolved cathodoluminescence spectra, we found the luminescent inhomogeneity in the sample with a core-shell structure. The deep acceptor-isolated V_Zn and the shallow acceptor V_Zn-related complex or clusters mainly distribute in the shell region.

Keywords: Chemical vapor transport; Defect identification and distribution; Microrod; Spatially resolved cathodoluminescence; Zinc oxide.