Strong UV intensity enhancement in ZnO nanorods via surface modification of formic acid

The ZnO nanorods arrays synthesized by the chemical bath deposition method were surface modified by the formic acid at room temperature in a very short time. The optical properties of the samples before and after modification had been investigated in detail. The results showed a remarkable strong enhancement of UV emission intensity by almost a factor of 14 after the formic acid modification, which is mainly attributed to the great suppression of the surface recombination since the formic acid can effectively remove a part of OH bonds on the surface of ZnO nanorods.