Quasi-aligned Zn1−xMgxO nanorods synthesized by thermal evaporation

Abstract

Quasi-aligned Zn1−xMgxO nanorods have been synthesized on Si substrates by thermal evaporation. The Mg content (x) in Zn1−xMgxO nanorods was 0.23, higher than that in the source materials by a factor of about 1.9. Zn1−xMgxO (x = 0.23) nanorods showed a wurtzite ZnO structure with the c-axis constant of 0.5179 nm. The nanorods grew along the [0 0 0 1] crystal direction and had uniform and flat hexagonal planes with diameters of about 200 nm. Photoluminescence measurements revealed that the predominant ultraviolet (UV) emission of Zn1−xMgxO (x = 0.23) nanorods was centred at 3.78 eV, with a ∼0.51 eV blueshift from the UV emission line (3.27 eV) of ZnO nanorods. This blueshift indicated the bandgap engineering in nanostructures of Zn1−xMgxO ternary alloys.