Temperature and excitation power dependence of photoluminescence of ZnO nanorods synthesized by pattern assisted hydrothermal method

Abstract Pattern assisted ZnO nanorods (NRs) growth are performed using electron beam lithography (EBL) and hydrothermal method. The patterns of lines, circles and squares are prepared on polycrystalline ZnO seed layer using PMMA as photoresist. It is found that the ZnO NRs can only grow on the area with ZnO seed layer, not on the PMMA surface. The TEM results show that the ZnO NRs have single crystal structures with good orientation along the c-axis. The excitation power dependence of photoluminescence (PL) spectra of ZnO NRs shows that with excitation power increasing, the near band edge emission increases rapidly than the defects related visible emissions. The temperature dependence of PL spectra was measured in the temperature range of 13–300 K. The dependence of peak position and peak energy of exciton bound (D 0 X) emission of ZnO NRs on temperature were analyzed. Two non-radiative recombination channels for the D 0 X emission are discussed in detail.