Extensive studies have recently appeared on the optical properties of nanostructured broad band semiconductors, due to their close dependence of morphology and optical respons. Among others, ZnO is promising for future optoelectronic devices due to its wide band-gap (3.37 eV at room temperature) and peculiar optical properties, which is also suitable as a host material for optically active impurities doping, such as rare-earth ions.

A variety of morphologies of pure and RE-doped ZnO nanostructures (RE = Eu, Tb) have been grown by metal thermal evaporation in reactive atmosphere. The structures and chemistry of the sample depend on the temperature and concentration gradient during deposition and the added doping species.

We studied light-emitting properties from different ZnO nanostructures, both in energy and time domain, using the synchrotron techniques X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) and time-resolved X-ray excited optical luminescence (TR-XEOL). Besides structural aspects, we investigate the time behavior of luminescence from nanostructured ZnO(RE). In general, defect state luminescence decays much slower than the fast band-gap emission. Detailed analysis of the different decay components, in particular of the excitonic decay, give insight into the optical structural property correlation of nanostructured materials. The role of rare earth dopants is likely to be of structure nucleating nature, still the opening of new lanthanide-related optical channels is subjet of ongoing investigations.

• Legal notice:
  

  Copyright (c) Pielaszek Research, all rights reserved.
  The above materials, including auxiliary resources, are subject to Publisher's copyright and the Author(s) intellectual rights. Without limiting Author(s) rights under respective Copyright Transfer Agreement, no part of the above documents may be reproduced without the express written permission of Pielaszek Research, the Publisher. Express permission from the Author(s) is required to use the above materials for academic purposes, such as lectures or scientific presentations.
  In every case, proper references including Author(s) name(s) and URL of this webpage: https://science24.com/paper/11998 must be provided.