Effects of the buffer layer annealing and post annealing temperature on the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown by a hydrothermal synthesis

The zinc oxide (ZnO) material as the II-VI compound semiconductor is useful in various fields of device applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), solar cells and gas sensors due to its wide direct band gap of 3.37eV and high exciton binding energy of 60meV at room temperature. In this study, the ZnO nanorods were deposited onto homogenous buffer layer/Si(100) substrates by a hydrothermal synthesis. The Effects of the buffer layer annealing and post annealing temperature on the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown by a hydrothermal synthesis were investigated. For the buffer layer annealing case, the annealed buffer layer surface became rougher with increasing of annealing temperature up to $750^{\circ}C$, while it was smoothed with more increasing of annealing temperature due to the evaporation of buffer layer. It was found that the roughest surface of buffer layer improved the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods. For the post annealing case, the hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods were annealed with various temperatures ranging from 450 to $900^{\circ}C$. Similarly in the buffer layer annealing case, the post annealing enhanced the properties of ZnO nanorods with increasing of annealing temperature up to $750^{\circ}C$. However, it was degraded with further increasing of annealing temperature due to the violent movement of atoms and evaporation. Finally, the buffer layer annealing and post annealing treatment could efficiently improve the properties of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods. The morphology and structural properties of ZnO nanorods grown by the hydrothermal synthesis were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and x-ray diffraction (XRD). The optical properties were also analyzed by photoluminescence (PL) measurement.