Piezoelectric and opto-electrical properties of silver-doped ZnO nanorods synthesized by low temperature aqueous chemical method

E S Nour,A Echresh,E Broitman,M Willander,Xianjie Liu,O Nur

doi:10.1063/1.4927510

E S Nour, A Echresh + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4927510

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Journal: AIP Advances	Publication Date: Jul 1, 2015
Citations: 24	License type: CC BY 3.0

Affiliation: Linköping University

Abstract

In this paper, we have synthesized Zn1−xAgxO (x = 0, 0.03, 0.06, and 0.09) nanorods (NRs) via the hydrothermal method at low temperature on silicon substrate. The characterization and comparison between the different Zn1−xAgxO samples, indicated that an increasing Ag concentration from x = 0 to a maximum of x = 0.09; All samples show a preferred orientation of (002) direction with no observable change of morphology. As the quantity of the Ag dopant was changed, the transmittances, as well as the optical band gap were decreased. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data clearly indicate the presence of Ag in ZnO crystal lattice. A nanoindentation-based technique was used to measure the effective piezo-response of different concentrations of Ag for both direct and converse effects. The value of the piezoelectric coefficient (d33) as well as the piezo potential generated from the ZnO NRs and Zn1−xAgxO NRs was found to decrease with the increase of Ag fraction. The finding in this investigation reveals that Ag doped ZnO is not suitable for piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.

Highlights

The semiconductor zinc oxide (ZnO) has gained a lot of interest in the research community
The full width half maximum (FWHM) change with the Ag incorporation demonstrates that the crystallinity of the NRs decreases with increasing the Ag concentration, indicating that large amount of Ag atoms may inhibit the c-axis preferential growth of the ZnO NRs.[15]
Silver (Ag) doped ZnO NRs have been successfully synthesized on silicon substrate

Summary

Introduction

The semiconductor zinc oxide (ZnO) has gained a lot of interest in the research community. ZnO is a group II–VI compound semiconductor with excellent thermal and chemical stability, has a relatively large excitonic binding energy (60 meV) and a direct wide band gap (3.37eV) at room temperature. Doping in ZnO with selective elements offers an effective method to adjust their electrical, optical, magnetic and piezoelectric properties, which is crucial for their practical applications.[8] For ZnO, silver (Ag) is a good candidate for adjusting its optical properties. Ag ions can act as acceptors in ZnO, existing on substitutional Zn sites or in the interstitial form.[9,10] In addition, in Ag doped ZnO, the location of the acceptor level remains contentious.[9,10]

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