Shape controlled Sn doped ZnO nanostructures for tunable optical emission and transport properties

Abstract

Pure and Sn doped ZnO nanostructures have been grown on SiO 2 /Si substrates by vapor-solid technique without using any catalysts. It has been found that the morphology of the nanostructures depend strongly on the growth temperature and doping concentration. By proper tuning of the growth temperature, morphology of pure ZnO can be changed from tetrapods to multipods. On the other hand, by varying the doping concentration of Sn in ZnO, the morphology can be tuned from tetrapods to flowerlike multipods to nanowires. X-ray diffraction pattern reveals that the nanostructures have a preferred (0002) growth orientation, and they are tensile strained with the increase of Sn doping in ZnO. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence characteristics of these nanostructures have been investigated in the range from 10 to 300 K. Pure ZnO tetrapods exhibited less defect state emissions than that of pure ZnO multipods. The defect emission is reduced with low concentration of Sn doping, but again increases at higher concentration of doping because of increased defects. Transport properties of pure and Sn doped ZnO tetrapods have been studied using complexplane impedance spectroscopy. The contribution from the arms and junctions of a tetrapod could be distinguished. Sn doped ZnO samples showed lower conductivity but higher relaxation time than that of pure ZnO tetrapods. C 2013 Author(s)

Development of Sn-doped ZnO based ecofriendly piezoelectric nanogenerator for energy harvesting application

“…This enables Sn to easily fit into the lattice with minimal lattice distortion and enhances the electron carrier concentration [32][33][34]. Numerous studies have been reported on the physical and electrical characterizations of Sn-doped ZnO materials [35][36][37].…”