Fabrication and photoluminescence of P doped ZnO nanobelts by thermal evaporation method

Uniform and flat single crystal ZnO:P nanobelts (NBs) were fabricated on Si (1 0 0) substrates by the thermal evaporation method. The growth process, free-catalyst self-assembly vapor-solid (V–S) mechanism, was described and investigated deeply in terms of thermodynamics and kinetics. Then, the photoluminescence (PL) properties of ZnO NBs were studied in a temperature range from 10 to 270 K. At 10 K the recombination of acceptor-bound exciton (A0X) was predominant in the PL spectrum, and was attributed to the transition of PZn−2VZn complex bound exciton. The active energy of A0X and acceptor binding energy were calculated to be 17.2 and 172 meV, respectively. The calculated acceptor binding energy of P doped ZnO nanostructure is in good agreement with that of P doped ZnO film.