Synthesis, structural and optical characterization of ZnO crystals grown in the presence of silver

Zinc oxide microcrystals grown at atmospheric pressure by the laser assisted flow deposition method were characterized by morphological, structural and optical techniques. A set of samples with 0, 0.8, 2.0, 3.0 and 5.0 mol% nominal AgNO3 content were studied in order to analyse the influence of silver amount on the near band edge recombination. A detailed study of the samples' photoluminescence evidence that at room temperature the free exciton recombination occurs at ~ 3.334 eV for crystals grown in the presence of silver instead of the broad peak observed at ~ 3.28 eV for the undoped ones.