Impact of Pb doping on the optical and electrical properties of ZnO nanowires
Mashkoor Ahmad1, Caofeng Pan, Jiong Zhao
1Beijing National Center for Electron Microscopy, The State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Abstract:
In this letter, effect of Pb-doping on the electrical and optical properties of the as grown ZnO nanowires (NWs) have been investigated. The microstructural investigations show that the Pb-dopant substituted into wurtzite ZnO nanowires without forming any secondary phase. The amount of contents and valence state of Pb ions has been investigated through energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray photospectroscopy. The doped nanowires show a remarkable reduction of 15.3 nm (127.4 meV) in the optical band gap, while an increase amount of deep-level defects transition in visible luminescence. Furthermore, the reduction in the band gap and the presence of deep-level defects induces strong effect in the electrical resistivity of doped NWs, which makes their potential for the fabrication of nanodevices. The possible growth mechanism is also briefly discussed.
