Fabrication of ZnO Nanorods Based p-n Heterojunction Diodes and Their Electrical Behavior with Temperature

Herein, we report the growth, characterizations and heterojunction diode application of aligned n-ZnO nanorods on p-silicon substrate. The nanorods were grown by low temperature aqueous solution process and characterized in terms of their morphological, structural, optical and electrical properties. The detailed characterization studies revealed that the as-grown nanorods are vertically aligned, well-crystalline possessing wurtzite hexagonal phase, grown along the [0001] direction. Presence of sharp and strong UV emission and suppressed green emission in the PL spectrum of as-grown ZnO nanorods confirmed good optical properties. The electrical properties of the as-grown nanorods were examined by fabricating p-n heterojunction diode. The fabricated heterojunction diode exhibited good rectifying behavior of rectification factor of similar to 4 at voltage of 7.5 volts. Low values of quality factor of 1.2 and 1.07 obtained at temperatures of 30 degrees C and 100 degrees C emphasized the good stability of the fabricated device over temperature change The values of effective barrier height of 0.73 and 0.9 volts are determined at temperatures 30 degrees C and 100 degrees C, respectively.