Thermal growth and cathodoluminescence of Bi doped ZnO nanowires and rods

Abstract

Bi doped ZnO nanowires and rods have been grown by a catalyst free evaporation–deposition method with precursors containing either ZnO and Bi 2 O 3 or ZnS and Bi 2 O 3 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.