Hydrothermal Growth of zinc oxide nano-rods doped with manganese

We synthesised ZnO Nanorods arrays doped with and without Mn doping (at a 1% concentration of the precursor salts) by a hydrothermal method at low temperature. They were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Photoluminescence (PL) and electron paramagnetic (EPR) spectroscopy. All samples produced broad band Photoluminescence (PL) emissions in the yellow-orange-red range, typically attributed to defects in the crystalline structure. The PL spectra does not seem to show significant changes in the ratio of the near band edge emission and the defect emission with the Mn doping. From this, we infer that the crystal quality of the ZnO nanorods does not change with Mn doping. The EPR spectrum from the ZnO nanoparticles formed in the growth solution confirms the presence of Mn in them. We use Micro-Raman spectroscopy to investigate the local crystal structure of the nanomaterials. Room temperature micro-Raman spectra confirms the wurtzite structure.