Formation of zinc-oxide nanoparticles in SiO2 by ion implantation combined with thermal oxidation

✍ Scribed by H. Amekura; K. Kono; N. Kishimoto; Ch. Buchal

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 183 KB
• Volume: 242
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2005.08.019

✦ Synopsis

Metal-ion implantation followed by thermal oxidation was carried out to fabricate zinc-oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) in silica glass (SiO 2 ). A SiO 2 substrate was implanted with Zn + ions of 60 keV up to 1.0 • 10 17 ions/cm 2 . In the as-implanted state, the sample shows a strong absorption peak at $4.8 eV and a weak one at $1.2 eV due to Zn metallic NPs. After annealing in oxygen gas at 700 °C for 1 h, the absorption in the visible region disappears and a new absorption edge appears at $3.25 eV. The grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GXRD) confirms the formation of ZnO NPs. The ZnO NPs show a photoluminescence (PL) peak at 3.32 eV under pulsed nitrogen-laser excitation at 3.68 eV. Annealing at 900 °C induces an additional shift of the absorption edge to $5.3 eV. The additional shift indicates the formation of a Zn 2 SiO 4 phase which was confirmed by GXRD.