Heavily doped ZnO nanobelts and their violet emission

In-doped ZnO nanobelts have been synthesized by a thermal evaporation method with absence of catalysts. The morphology and microstructure of the doped ZnO nanobelts have been extensively investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The results show that the belts grow along the (1010) direction with the typical lengths in the range of several tens to several hundreds of micrometers, and the typical widths of the belts are several hundreds of nanometers. According to the XRD pattern of the sample, the most of belts are ZnO with heavy doping content and ternary Zinc Indium Oxide (such as Zn5In2O8, Zn4In2O7). The X-ray energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) analysis demonstrates that the In content in the as-examined belt is as high as 27 at%. Notably, the photoluminescence spectrum reveals a novel violet emission peak (425 nm) in the as-synthesized product.