Growth of vertical nanorods with a MgZnO ternary phase through thermal evaporation

Nanorod heterostructures of MgZnO/ZnO were fabricated by using thermal evaporation on Si (100) with ZnO templates. The morphologies and the microstructures were found to strongly depend on the synthesis procedure and the positions of Zn and Mg. The Mg composition increased with increasing thickness of the nanorods and attained a maximum value of 33.4 % for the sample with a shorter distance between the Zn powder and the substrate. On the other hand, exchanging the source positions led to the formation of inclined nanorods with Mg atoms only in the thick films grown prior to the growth of nanorods. For positions with shorter distances between the Zn powders and the substrates, photoluminescence investigations showed the emission of 3.518 eV with a blue shift of 190 meV compared to near-band-edge emission (NBE) of ZnO, which was related to the MgZnO of x_Mg = 0.058.