Structural and optical properties of SbAl co-doped ZnO nanowires synthesized using Nanoparticle Assisted Pulsed Laser Deposition (NAPLD) with Sb as catalyst

The paper deals with study of SbAl co-doped ZnO nanowires synthesized using Nanoparticle Assisted Pulsed Laser Deposition (NAPLD). The nanowires were synthesized by using ZnO:Al as target and Sb coated Si as substrate. At a growth temperature of 750 °C, random oriented high density nanowires with a diameter of about 1 μm and a length up to a few tens of micro meters were synthesized. The samples were annealed at 450, 550 and 650 °C. The SbAl co-doped ZnO nanowires annealed at 650 °C showed a significant change in lattice constant of 0.06° from XRD and widening of lattice fringe spacing of 0.56 nm from TEM. From the XPS analysis, a peak at 539.5 eV a near binding energy of SbO bond and peak at 76.2 eV corresponding to AlO bonds confirms the penetration of oxygen. The suppression of A1T modes and E1(L0) modes from Raman spectroscopy confirms the depletion of oxygen vacancies. Thus resulting in a strong improvement in UV emission and reduction in visible emission as observed from room temperature PL.