A facile room temperature electrochemical deposition of pyramidal ZnO nanostructures: Suppressing the green emission

Pyramidal ZnO nanostructures have been deposited on Si (1 0 0) substrates by a simple electrochemical deposition (ECD) technique at different current densities. The quality as well as the crystallite sizes of the fabricated ZnO nanostructures was found to depend on the applied current density. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements showed that the fabricated ZnO nanostructures are of hexagonal shape and have preferable (1 0 1) orientation. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the fabricated nanoarchitectures have two highly intense peaks around ultraviolet and green emissions. The intensity of those PL peaks was found to depend on the applied current density used to fabricate the material. The appropriate conditions to suppress the green emission of the fabricated nanostructures were identified, which are very important for a plethora of device applications. The observed morphological, structural and optical properties were related to the defect structure of the fabricated ZnO.

► The ZnO quality and crystallite sizes depend on the applied current density.
► The intensity of the photoluminescence peaks depend on the applied current density.
► The observed properties of ZnO are defect-based criteria.
► One to one ratio of Zn to O reduces the sample's defects.