Thermal growth and cathodoluminescence of Bi doped ZnO nanowires and rods

摘要

Bi doped ZnO nanowires and rods have been grown by a catalyst free evaporation–deposition method with precursors containing either ZnO and Bi2O3 or ZnS and Bi2O3 powders. The use of ZnS as a precursor was found to lead to a higher density of nano- and microstructures at lower temperatures than by using ZnO. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) shows that the Bi content in the wires and rods is in the range 0.15–0.35 at%. Bi incorporation was found to induce a red shift of the near band gap luminescence but no quantitative correlation between the shift and the amount of Bi, as measured by EDS, was observed. The I–V curves of single Bi doped wires had linear behaviour at low current and non-linear behaviour for high currents, qualitatively similar to that of undoped wires.