Synthesis and properties of tellurium-nitrogen co-doped ZnO micro-/nano-rods

Vertically aligned tellurium-nitrogen co-doped ZnO micro-/nano-rods with a hexagonal symmetry were fabricated via the chemical vapor transport method. The as-grown samples exhibited excellent crystalline. The incorporation of tellurium and nitrogen was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectra, and we found tellurium is beneficial to reinforce the nitrogen doping efficiency. Combining with Raman and variable temperature photoluminescence characterizations, we have demonstrated the suppression of zinc interstitial related shallow donor defects due to tellurium incorporation. Meanwhile, the intensity of the emission at 3.311 eV, which was ascribed to the radiative recombination of the free electron to the zinc vacancy related shallow acceptor states, was enhanced in the photoluminescence spectra of the sample with higher tellurium and nitrogen concentration. Our results show that tellurium-nitrogen co-doping might be a possible path for realizing reliable p-type one-dimensional ZnO nanostructures. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement