A ZnO p-n junction light-emitting diode (LED) was fabricated on a-plane Al2O3 substrate by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy. NO plasma activated by a radio frequency atomic source was used to grow the p-type ZnO layer of the LED. The current-voltage measurements at low temperatures showed a typical diode characteristic with a threshold voltage of about 4.0V under forward bias. With increasing temperature, the rectification characteristic was degraded gradually, and faded away at room temperature. Electroluminescence band of the ZnO p-n junction LED was located at the blue-violet region and was weakened significantly with increase of temperature. This thermal quenching of the electroluminescence was attributed to the degradation of the diode characteristic with temperature.

A newly-designed photoelectrochemical self-powered detector is applied to an α-Ga2O3 nanorod array to realize the detection of solar-blind ultraviolet light (wavelengths below 300 nm) and fast response (rise time of 0.076 s and decay time of 0.056 s).

Cu-doped ZnO nanorods have been grown at 90°C for 90 min onto a quartz substrate pre-coated with a ZnO seed layer using a hydrothermal method. The influence of copper (Cu) precursor and concentration on the structural, morphological, and optical properties of ZnO nanorods was investigated. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the nanorods grown are highly crystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure grown along the c-axis. The lattice strain is found to be compressive for all samples, where a minimum compressive strain of −0.114% was obtained when 1 at.% Cu was added from Cu(NO3)2. Scanning electron microscopy was used to investigate morphologies and the diameters of the grown nanorods. The morphological properties of the Cu-doped ZnO nanorods were influenced significantly by the presence of Cu impurities. Near-band edge (NBE) and a broad blue-green emission bands at around 378 and 545 nm, respectively, were observed in the photoluminescence spectra for all samples. The transmittance characteristics showed a slight increase in the visible range, where the total transmittance increased from approximately 80% for the nanorods doped with Cu(CH3COO)2 to approximately 90% for the nanorods that were doped with Cu(NO3)2.

A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) structure ultraviolet photodetector has been fabricated from amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) film at room temperature. The photodetector can work without consuming external power and show a responsivity of 4 mA/W. The unbiased photoresponse characteristic is attributed to the hole-trapping process occurred in the electrode/a-IGZO interface, and a physical model based on band energy theory is proposed to explain the origin of the photoresponse at zero bias in our device. Our findings may provide a way to realize unbiased photoresponse in the simple MSM structure.