Nondestructive In Situ Identification of Crystal Orientation of Anisotropic ZnO Nanostructures

Abstract

We present a novel method for direct, fast, nonambiguous, and nondestructive identification of the growth direction and orientation of individual ZnO nanostructures in the device-ready environment by exploiting high-resolution confocal Raman mapping. Various features of the Raman spectrum of ZnO nanostructures, vapor deposition grown nanobelts and peptide-assisted vertical nanorods, were found to be sensitive to the relative orientation of the crystal plane. Furthermore, we discovered that the waveguiding property of the ZnO nanobelt is also orientation dependent and results in either apparent enhancement or suppression of Raman scattering from the underlying substrate. We demonstrate that various features of Raman spectrum of ZnO and the modulation of the substrate signal can be employed for the rapid and nondestructive identification of the crystal growth direction and orientation of these nanostructures even after integration into devices, which is impossible with current electron microscopy and diffraction techniques. We believe that the general features observed here are equally applicable to other wurtzite nanostructures (ZnS, GaN) which are critical in optoelectronics, lasing, and piezotronic applications.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 05, 2009
Accession Number
ADA543159

Entities

People

  • Maneesh K Gupta
  • Melanie M. Tomczak
  • Rajesh R Naik
  • Rusen Yang
  • Srikanth Singamaneni
  • Vladimir V. Tsukruk
  • Zhong L. Wang

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Crystal Structure
  • Crystals
  • Diffraction
  • Electron Microscopy
  • High Resolution
  • Materials
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Materials Processing
  • Materials Science
  • Microscopy
  • Nanomaterials
  • Nanostructures
  • Orientation (Direction)
  • Raman Scattering
  • Raman Spectra
  • Scattering
  • Spectra

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nanoscale Plasmonic Nanotechnology

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene