Khalifa Al-Azri1, Roslan Md. Nor2 and Yusoff Mohd Amin2
Poster-Accepted Abstracts: J Nanomed Nanotechnol
Vapor phase transport assisted by mixture of ZnO/graphite powders and phosphorus pentoxide via thermal evaporation was used to prepare un-doped and P-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures. The structure and morphology were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).The morphological change in the shape of the nanostructure from nanowire to nanoballs can be observed from the Field Effect Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) images. XRD results indicate that P-doped ZnO nanostructures lost the (002) orientation preference and became randomly oriented. Photoluminescence (PL) properties of un-doped and P-doped ZnO showed significant changes in the optical properties providing evidence for several types of defects such as zinc interstitials (Zni), oxygen interstitials (Oi), zinc vacancy (VZn), singly charged zinc vacancy (VZn-), oxygen vacancy (Vo), singly charged oxygen vacancy (Vo+) and oxygen anti-site defects (OZn) in the grown nanostructures. The P-doped ZnO nanostructures have exhibited shifted PL peaks at near band edge (NBE) and red luminescence compared to the un-doped ZnO. These P-doped ZnO nanostructures have potential application possibilities in gas sensors, solar cells and energy harvesting devices like nanogenerators.