Laser stimulated electrooptics in the Ag–ZnO nanorods

•ZnO nanorods were fabricated by simply varying the content of the growth solution.•Substantial linear electrooptics effect was found.•The electrooptics effect is defined by the morphology and not on the microstructure of the nanorods.

In the present work, we have discovered a photoinduced linear electrooptics in ZnO nanorods which were fabricated by simply varying the content of the growth solution. It was established that by varying the growth solution concentration one can vary the surface density of the ZnO nanorod arrays growth on the surface. The lowest ZnO content produces the lowest surface density in the nanorods. The photoinduced linear electrooptics was studied using the He–Ne laser at wavelength 1150 nm and was stimulated by 7 ns nitrogen laser at 371 nm. The nonlinear dependence of the Ag nanoparticle (NP) concentration was found and it was significantly higher than that for the pure ZnO NP. Principal role of the Ag NP on the observed effects was discussed.

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