Self-catalyst synthesis of aligned ZnO nanorods by pulsed laser deposition

High-density well-aligned ZnO nanorods were successfully synthesized on ZnO-buffer-layer coated indium phosphide (InP) (100) substrates by a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. Scanning electron microscopy images show that the ZnO buffer layer formed uniform drip-like structure and ZnO nanorods were well-oriented perpendicular to the substrate surface. The sharp diffraction peak observed at 34.46° in X-ray diffraction scanning pattern suggests that the ZnO nanorods exhibit a (002)-preferred orientation. The PL spectra of ZnO samples shows a strong near band edge emission centered at about 380 nm and a weak deep level emission centered at around 495 nm, and it demonstrates that the ZnO nanorods produced in this work have high optical quality, which sheds light on further applications for nanodevices.