Well-aligned ZnO nanocolumns grown by reactive electron beam evaporation

We report on the reactive electron beam evaporative growth of well-aligned ZnO nanocolumns on Si (001) wafers in the environment of NH3/H2 gas mixture by using polycrystalline ZnO ceramic target as source material. The growth was carried out at low temperatures (400–450 °C) without employing any metal catalysts. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) revealed that nanocolumns with uniform distributions in their diameters, lengths, and densities were grown vertically from the substrates and terminated by smooth hexagonal (0001) facets with no terrace-like steps emerged, which should render potential applications such as inherent resonance cavities in fabricating ultraviolet-laser arrays. X-ray diffraction measurements revealed that ZnO nanocolumns were highly c-axis oriented, which is well consistent with the FESEM observations. More importantly, photoluminescence investigations of the nanocolumns demonstrated the strong excitonic emission and extremely weak deep level emission, indicating the high crystalloid and optical quality of the nanocolumns.