Aqueous synthesis of n-/p-type ZnO nanorods on porous silicon for the application of p-n junction device

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods have shown very unique properties for application such as field emission (FE), light emitting diode (LED), transparent film of solar cell. In general, as-synthesized ZnO nanorods have n-type semiconducting properties. Many researchers have tired to grow p-type ZnO nanorods for making p-n junction device. The construction of p-n junction device using ZnO nanoroads is limited by producing p[type ZnO nanorods. In this work, chemical bath deposition (CBD) is used to synthesize ZnO nanorods. Before CBD a seed layer is produced by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on n-type porous silicon (PS). To fabricate p-type ZnO nanorods, nitrogen (N) from NH3 is used as doping material during seeding process. The ZnO nanorods are aligned vertically with uniform shape and length on the PS substrate. This approach opens the possibility of creating standard p-n junction device for applications as sensor arrays, piezoelectric antenna arrays, optoelectronic devices, and interconnects.