Influences of Al dopant atoms to the structure and morphology of Al doped ZnO nanorod thin film

Abstract

We report our work about dependency of Al dopant atoms to the growth process of Al doped ZnO (AZO) nanorod structure. ZnO is one of type metal oxide, which is classified as semiconducting material with direct wide band gap (∼ 3.4 eV). This metal oxide is widely used in optoelectronic devices, such as solar cell, gas sensing, and photocatalyst. To produce effective photoelectrode in solar cell devices and high sensitive sensor in gas sensing application, many researchers have been modifying the nanostructure, such as inserting dopant ions, variation in deposition technique and surface modifications. By inserting some dopant ions/atoms, the structure and morphology of ZnO nanorod can be controlled. Nucleation process of nanorod structure which is growth by chemical solution method, are depend on seed layer morphology. We have prepared ZnO nanorod thin film (growth by self-assembly method) with inserting aluminum as dopant atom both in seed layer and nanorod growth solution. The morphology of ZnO nanostructured significantly changes as the existence of aluminum atoms. Based on X-ray diffraction pattern, the wurtzite structures of AZO nanorod still possessed and only affect to the small shift of lattice crystal. A high surface roughness of seed layer can produce wide radius of nanorod, since the nucleation process initiated by seed layer particle size as a template of nanorod arrangement.