Effects of laser-ablated impurity on aligned ZnO nanorods grown by chemical vapor deposition

Highly oriented ZnO nanorod arrays are fabricated on a p−-Si (111) wafer by low-pressure thermal Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) at low temperature using metal Zn vapor and O2 as precursors. A laser ablation in combination with the CVD is used to vaporize an impurity and to dope it into a growing ZnO. The impurity sources are W, Co, Mn, Er, Al metals and sintered ZnO. It is concluded that the type of impurity remarkably influences the shape, size, growth orientation and photoluminescence spectrum of ZnO nanostructures. When the impurity is Er or Mn, the ZnO nanorods oriented vertically to a wafer are fabricated.