Growth and characterization of n-ZnO/p-GaN nanorods on silicon for the fabrication of heterojunction diodes

•High-quality zinc oxide layer was epitaxially grown on gallium nitride nanorods.•The morphology of zinc oxide can be controlled by varying the growth conditions.•The n-zinc oxide/p-gallium nitride diodes with rectifying behavior were fabricated.

A heterojunction n-ZnO/p-GaN diode device was fabricated and characterized on Si (111) substrate. Vertically-aligned Mg-doped GaN nanorods (NRs) were grown on Si (111) by plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition. Intrinsic n-type ZnO was subsequently grown on top of p-GaN nanorods by hydrothermal method at low temperature. The effects of precursor concentrations on the morphology and optical properties of ZnO nanostructures were investigated. Various ZnO nanostructures could be synthesized to obtain different heterojunction nanostructures. The high resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction results further verified that the GaN NRs were single crystals with the growth orientation along [0001], and the epitaxial wurtzite ZnO films were grown on GaN NRs. The n-ZnO film/p-GaN NR heterojunction diodes were thus fabricated. Diode-like rectifying behavior was actually observed with a leakage current of less than 2.0 × 10− 4 A at − 20 V bias, a forward current of 7.2 × 10− 3 A at 20 V bias, and the turn-on voltage at around 5.6 V.