Facile synthesis of different morphologies of Te-doped ZnO nanostructures

Te-doped ZnO nanostructures were synthesized by an annealing (vapor–solid) process under ambient conditions, and characterized in terms of their morphological, structural, compositional and optical properties. The structural and morphological characterizations revealed that the synthesized nanostructures were well-defined multipods, needles and spherical particles, and possessed well-crystalline ZnO wurtzite hexagonal phase. Also, in the X-ray diffraction studies, the presence of a shift in the peak positions towards a lower angle, and a decrease in the intensity, with an increase in the Te concentration, as compared to the undoped ZnO, were observed. The chemical composition confirmed the presence of Te, in the case of multipod and needle morphologies. The effect of doping on the crystalline quality and optical properties was also investigated, by using photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectrometers. The Raman results demonstrated that the doped ZnO nanostructures had a lower crystalline quality than the undoped ZnO. Moreover, the PL results showed a decrease in the band gap for the doped ZnO nanostructures, in comparison to the undoped ZnO. A possible growth mechanism was also proposed.