Morphological, Structural and UV Sensing Properties of Fe-Doped ZnO Nanorods

Abstract

Iron (Fe) doped ZnO nanorods were synthesized on glass substrate using a sol-gel hydrothermal growth method by adopting various concentration ratios of 0.8 at% Fe, 1 at% Fe and 3 at% Fe respectively. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis show that all the grown ZnO nanorods have a hexagonal wurtzite structure and are preferentially oriented along the c-axis perpendicular to the substrate surface. At 3 at% Fe-doping, the crystalline quality and the preferential orientation of ZnO nanorods are improved and below 3 at% Fe-doping concentration crystalline quality and the preferential orientation of ZnO nanorods is weakened in turn. The surface morphology analysis of the samples show that the ZnO nanorods are grown vertically to the substrate surface and highly interconnected. Such interconnected network will facilitates the electron transport along the nanorods axis. Current-voltage and current-time characterization under the exposure of UV light ON/OFF sates with exhibited excellent current gain of 1.12 and good response/recovery time of 30 and 10 s showed that the fabricated device can be used for UV sensing applications.