Photoluminescence of ZnO nano-tetrapods

Abstract

The ZnO nano-tetrapods have been prepared by the evaporation of metallic Zn powder at the temperature range of 700oC- 950oC in air. The influence of experimental conditions, such as the evaporation temperature and the substrate temperature, on the morphology, the size and the photoluminescence (PL) was investigated. The XRD pattern showed that the nano–tetrapods were ZnO with hexagonal structure. The branch size of the tetrapods was about two hundreds nanometers. The photoluminescence spectrum measured at room temperature consists of two bands, a narrow band at 380 nm (UV band) and a wide band around 500 nm (green band (GB)). The intensity of each band, the ratio of the peak intensity of UV band to the GB band and the GB band position depend on the experiment conditions. However, the peak position of the UV band was not changed.