Aluminum doped core-shell ZnO/ZnS nanowires: Doping and shell layer induced modification on structural and photoluminescence properties

Abstract

In this work, we investigated the combined effects of Al doping and surface modification on the fabrication of a core–shell type ZnO/ZnS nanowires (NWs) and its structural, electrical, and photoluminescence (PL) properties. A systematic investigation for different concentrations of Al doping followed by surface modification with different thicknesses of ZnS layer was performed. Significant changes in the nature of PL spectra and electronic conductivity are observed and insight discussions are present. Structural characterization on the core-shell NWs reveals the successful fabrication of Al doped highly single crystalline ZnO core and polycrystalline ZnS shell with both ZnO and ZnS are of hexagonal wurtzite structure. Compared with the bare undoped ZnO NWs, Al doped core-shell ZnO/ZnS NWs exhibit two orders of magnitude improvement in the electronic conductivity and fivefold enhancement in the UV PL intensity. The Al doped core-shell ZnO/ZnS NWs shows an efficient improvement in the UV PL intensity than the undoped core-shell ZnO NWs. The obtained improvement in the PL result is explained on the basis of interfacial transfer of photogenerated charge carriers and modification of defects.