Quenching and blue shift of UV emission intensity of hydrothermally grown ZnO:Mn nanorods

•Single crystalline ZnO:Mn nanorods.•Reduced optical active defects.•Quenching and blue shift of UV emission.

ZnO:Mn alloyed nanorods (Mn nominal concentration – 3–5 wt%) were synthesized by using hydrothermal process at an optimized growth temperature of 200 °C and a growth time of 3 h. The XRD, SEM and Raman, FTIR investigations reveal that ZnO:Mn (Mn – 3–5 wt%) retained hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure with nanorod morphology. The HRTEM and SAED analysis confirm the single crystalline nature of hydrothermally grown ZnO and ZnO:Mn (5 wt%) nanorods. The ZnO:Mn nanorods (Mn – 0–5 wt%) displayed optical band gap in the range 3.23–3.28 eV. The blue shift of UV emission peak (PL) from 393 (ZnO) to 386 nm and quenching of photoluminescence emission in ZnO:Mn is due to the Mn incorporation in ZnO lattice. Relative increase in intensity of Raman band at 660 cm−1 with nominal doping of Mn 3–5 wt% in ZnO indicate that defects are introduced in ZnO:Mn system as a result of doping that leads to the quenching of photoluminescence emission at 393 nm.