RESUMEN

Photoelectrical properties of semiconductor nanostructures are expected to be improved significantly by strain engineering. Besides the local strain, the strain gradient is promising to tune the luminescence properties by modifying the crystal symmetry. Here, we report the investigation of strain-gradient induced symmetry-breaking effect on excitonic states in pure bending ZnO microwires by high spatial-resolved cathodoluminescence at low temperature of 80 K. In addition to the local-strain induced light emission peak shift, the bound exciton emission photon energy shows an extraordinary jump of ∼16.6 meV at a high strain-gradient of 1.22% µm-1, which is ascribed to the strain gradient induced symmetry-breaking. Such a symmetry-breaking lifts the energy degeneracy of the electronic band structures, which significantly modifies the electron-hole interactions and the fine structures of the bound exciton states. These results provide a further understanding of the strain gradient effect on the excitonic states and possess a potential for the applications in optoelectronic devices.

RESUMEN

Graphene-semiconductor interface is important for the applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. Here we report the modulation of the electric transport properties of graphene/ZnO nanowire Schottky diode by gate voltage (Vg). The ideality factor of the graphene/ZnO nanowire Schottky diode is ~1.7, and the Schottky barrier height is ~0.28 eV without external Vg. The Schottky barrier height is sensitive to Vg due to the variation of Fermi level of graphene. The barrier height increases quickly with sweeping Vg towards the negative value, while decreases slowly towards the positive Vg. Our results are helpful to understand the fundamental mechanism of the electric transport in graphene-semiconductor Schottky diode.

RESUMEN

The effect of uniaxial tensile strain on individual ZnO nanowires with diameters ranging from 500 nm to 2.7 µm and the effect of pure bending strain on ZnO microwires are systematically investigated by Raman spectroscopy. It is found for the first time that the tensile and compressive strains result in a linear downshift and upshift of the phonon frequencies of the E2L, E2H, E1TO, and second-order modes compared with the strain-free state, respectively, while the A1TO mode is not influenced by the strain. Furthermore, the strain modulation on phonons depends strongly on the nanowire diameter. The E2H phonon deformation potential is ~3 cm(-1)/% for the 500 nm nanowire, while 1% tensile strain results only in ~1 cm(-1) downward frequency shift for the 2.7 µm ZnO wire. The results provide a versatile "local-self-calibration" and nondestructive method to measure and monitor the local strains in ZnO micro/nanostructures.

RESUMEN

We report the temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL) properties of monolayer graphene-Au-nanoparticle-ZnO (GAZ) microwire hybrid structures. By comparing with the bare ZnO wire without coverage of graphene, a three times enhancement of PL was found in the GAZ hybrid structures. The enhancement is attributed to the coupling between the PL photons from ZnO and the graphene surface plasmons with ~1-2 nm Au as a corrugated surface. Our results may be valuable for designing graphene-ZnO hybrid based optical and photoelectrical devices.

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RESUMEN

Localized ultraviolet photoresponse properties of bent ZnO microwires bridging two perfect Ohmic contacts in both atmospheric and high vacuum (8 × 10(-6) torr) environments have been investigated for the first time to explore the bending strain effect on the photoelectrical properties of ZnO. It is found that the ZnO microwire has higher photoconductivity and faster rising speed when photo-excitation is localized at the bending region in an atmospheric environment, while the rising speeds are almost the same when photo-excitations are localized at the bending and straight regions under vacuum. The bending strain induced improvement of the UV photoresponse in air was well explained by considering the coupling of piezoelectric effects and the surface oxygen adsorption/desorption procedure on the bent ZnO microwire. Our results are valuable for designing and fabricating strain modulated photoelectrical micro/nano-devices.

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