Journal of

Nanoelectronics and Optoelectronics

Copyright © 2015 by American Scientific Publishers Vol. 10, pp. 1–5, 2015
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ARTICLE

Fabrication and Characterization of ZnO

Nanorods/Pd–Au Contacts
Pushpa Giri, Sumit Vyas, and P. Chakrabarti∗, †

Vertically aligned ZnO nanorods were grown with two-layer structure including a buffer layer of AZO (50 nm).
ZnO nanorods were grown by RF Sputtering on AZO buffer layer pre-deposited by thermal evaporation
method. The XRD results confirmed the polycrystalline nature of the sample. The average height of 618 nm
and the diameter of 474 nm of ZnO nanorods were measured with the help of Scanning Electron Microscope.
The optical bandgap of the sample estimated by Ellipsometric measurement is 3.35 eV. Au/Pd dots were
deposited on the ZnO nano-dot structure by shadow mask technique. The current–voltage (I–V) characteris-
tics reveal the rectifying behavior of the contact with rectification ratio and ideality factor of 2534 at ±5 V and
4.06 respectively.
Keywords: ZnO Nanorods, RF Sputtering, Ellipsometric Measurement, Schottky Diode, I–V Characteristics.

1. INTRODUCTION nanoneedles and nano-tetrapods.5 6 Among various nano-

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) has drawn enormous attention in view
of its fascinating optical, electrical, magnetic, piezoelec-
tric and chemical properties. ZnO semiconductor also
finds important applications as UV detectors and emitters
because of its wide direct bandgap energy (∼3.37 eV) and
a large excitation binding energy (∼60 meV) respectively.1
ZnO is a promising oxide semiconductor having enor-
mous potential for deployment in transparent electron-
ics, ultraviolet (UV) light emitters and detectors, chemical
sensors, spin electronics, piezoelectronic and biomedical
applications.2 ZnO has a high value of electromechanical
coupling through the c-direction which makes it suitable
for widespread use in acoustic wave devices. One of the
major advantages of ZnO is its stable wurtzite structure
with lattice spacing a = 0
325 nm and c = 0
521 nm.3 4
This feature makes it an interesting nanomaterial. As a
result, a diverse range of ZnO nanostructures could be
reportedly grown in the past. These nanostructures include
nanowires, nanotubes, nanorings, nanoflower, nanorods,
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Motilal
Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad 211004, India
∗
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Email: pchakrabarti.ece@iitbhu.ac.in
†
The author is currently on deputation from the Department of Electron-
ics Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, India.
A part of the work was presented in the 3rd Global Conference on Mate-
rials Science and Engineering CMSE-2014.
Received: 22 April 2015
Accepted: 9 July 2015
structures, ZnO nanorods (NRs) are extremely attractive
because of their superior charge carrier transport proper-
ties and great crystalline quality. ZnO nanostructures help
to improve the electrical transport, UV emission, gas sens-
ing properties significantly. An improved ferromagnetic
property can also be achieved by using nanostructures
of doped ZnO. Vertically aligned ZnO nanorods attracted
attention of the researchers because of their potential appli-
cations in nanoelectronics and photonics. ZnO nanorods
are relatively easy to grow and can produce high qual-
ity of p–n heterojunctions on any p-type substrate. The
lattice matching between epitaxial ZnO and the support-
ing substrate determines the quality of vertical alignment
and surface area to volume ratio. It has been reported
that the sensitivity of detection of ZnO nanorods based
FET biosensors increases due to large surface area to vol-
ume ratio of ZnO nanorods.4 Photodiodes based on ZnO
nanorods have numerous advantages such as high quan-
tum efficiency, high response speed, low dark current, high
UV/visible contrast ratio and high responsivity. There are
several methods available for growing orderly oriented
ZnO nanostructures. The major techniques used for grow-
ing ZnO nanostructure include chemical vapor deposition
(CVD), pulsed laser deposition (PLD),7–10 spray pyrolysis
methods,11 hydrothermal methods,12 13 sol–gel method,10
thermal evaporation,14 RF/DC sputtering,15 17 sonochemi-
cal method18 and activated reactive evaporation19 etc.
In this paper, RF sputtering method has been used to
obtain high quality ZnO nanorods on an aluminium doped

J. Nanoelectron. Optoelectron. 2015, Vol. 10, No. xx 1555-130X/2015/10/001/005 doi:10.1166/jno.2015.1849 1

Fabrication and Characterization of ZnO Nanorods/Pd–Au Contacts Giri et al.

zinc oxide (AZO) buffer layer grown on a Si substrate by

using vacuum thermal evaporation deposition technique.
The properties of ZnO nanorods deposited by the two-
step approach are dependent on the deposition parame-
ters such as a substrate material, substrate temperature and
distance of the substrate from the source. Gold/Palladium
(Au/Pd) (80:20) has been evaporated on the top of the
vertically aligned nanorods to form a metallic contact by
shadow masking technique.20 In the present study, synthe-
sis and characterization of ZnO nanorods have been carried
out. The structural, morphological, crystalline orientations,
optical and electrical properties of ZnO nanorods grown
by the above method are discussed.

2. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
2.1. Preparation of ZnO Buffer Layer
Before growing ZnO nanorods, an AZO buffer layer21 was
deposited on the p-type (100) silicon (Si) substrate of size
10 mm × 5 mm × 0.5 mm. Prior to deposition of buffer
layer, the Si substrate was cleaned by RCA (the Radio Cor-
poration of America) method22 to remove inorganic and
organic contaminations. The cleaned substrate was loaded
to the substrate holder of a thermal deposition unit (Hind
High Vacuum coating unit, Model: 12A4D). An ultra-thin
layer (∼50 nm) Al-doped ZnO (1% Al) (AZO)23–25 buffer
layer was deposited onto Si substrate using thermal evap-
oration deposition in vacuum. Experimental trials revealed
that the AZO buffer layer helps to improve the density,
vertical alignment and the orientation of growth of ZnO
nanorods. The heating filament used in the process was a
conventional tungsten filament in which the material was
kept. The distance between the substrate and the source
was adjusted to 140 mm. For 1% AZO buffer layer, 5 gm
of ZnO powder (highly pure ZnO (99.99% from Alfa
Aesar, Mumbai, India) and 0.0313 gm of Al2 O3 (99.99%
from Alfa Aesar, Mumbai, India) were mixed. The AZO
material was prepared by thoroughly mixing the two pow-
ders in above proportions with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
for about 2 hours manually with the help of agate mortar
and pestle set. AZO pellets of 10-mm diameter were pre-
pared in this process. The base pressure of 10−6 mbar was
created in the vacuum chamber of the thermal deposition
unit. The substrate was kept at room temperature during
the deposition of the films. The thickness of AZO buffer
layer was set at 50 nm with the help of built-in digital
thickness monitor of the thermal evaporation setup unit.
In order to improve the quality of AZO buffer layer for
the proper growth of ZnO nanorods, the sample was sub-
jected to annealing at 773 K in hot muffle furnace for an
hour.26 27 The sample was taken out for the next deposition
cycle after the film was cooled down to room temperature.
2.2. Preparation of ZnO Nanorods
After the formation of AZO buffer layer, ZnO nanorods
were grown by using a RF-sputtering. ZnO (99.99% pure)
Fig. 1. XRD Image of ZnO nanorods with AZO buffer layer on Si
substrate.
target of 3 mm thickness and 50.8 mm diameter was pre-
pared with the help of a hydraulic press and kept in a fur-
nace at 1073 K for 5 hours. The sample was placed on the
sample holder of the RF sputtering unit (Hind High Vac-
uum, Model: PS 2000) fixed at a distance of 100 mm from
the substrate. Before initiating the sputtering process, the
vacuum chamber was evacuated to ∼10−6 mbar. In order
to have high-deposition rate, RF power was set at a value
as high as 300 W while sputtering was carried out at room
temperature. The flow rates of argon gas and oxygen gas
in the chamber were controlled by Mass flow controllers
(MFC1 and MFC2). Highly pure oxygen and argon gas
were used for the growth of ZnO nanorods in the chamber
with Ar: O2 ratio set at 80:20 sccm. The digital thickness
monitor displayed the rate of deposition and thickness in
the real time. The deposition time was set at 1 hr so that
the thickness of the deposited film becomes approximately
equal to the desired value of 600 nm.
2.3. Growth Mechanism
In the present work ZnO nanorods were grown using
a physical vapour deposition process. For growing ZnO
nanorods, RF sputtering method has been chosen to get
well aligned ZnO nanorods. The method enables one to
have a precise control over the growth process by vary-
ing the RF power and/or temperature of the substrate.28 29
Prior to growth of ZnO nanorods, a 50 nm buffer layer of
AZO was formed by thermal evaporation in vacuum. The
buffer layer plays a key role in the formation of the ZnO
Table I. Structural parameters of ZnO nanorods with AZO buffer layer
deposited on Si substrate.
Crystallite Interplanar
2 ( ) FWHM ( ) size (Å) spacing (Å) Strain
34.297 0
437 190
39 2
614 2
747 × 10−3
62.77 0
99 94
07 1
4802 3
147 × 10−3

2 J. Nanoelectron. Optoelectron., 10, 1–5, 2015

Giri et al.
Fig. 2. SEM images of (a) AZO buffer layer, (b) top view of ZnO nanorods on Si substrate and (c) cross-sectional view of ZnO nanorods on Si
substrate.
nanorods. The nature of the nanorods is largely depen-
dent on various process parameters. The AZO buffer layer
also reduces the lattice mismatch between the substrate
and deposited film. The orientation of the nanorods, grain
size, roughness and density of the nanorods can be tailored
by the buffer layer. It is thus possible to modify the opti-
cal and electrical properties of the ZnO nanostructure by
including the buffer layer.25 27 30 After deposition of buffer
layer, the sample was annealed in order to improve the
crystalline property.
2.4. Preparation of Schottky and Ohmic Contacts
The Gold/Palladium (Au/Pd) dots were evaporated on
the top of the vertically aligned ZnO nanorods by using
shadow mask technique to form Schottky contacts. The
metal deposition was done by using a Sputter Coater unit.
The Schottky contact area was ∼7.85 × 10−3 cm2 . Alu-
minium was deposited on the backside of Si using thermal
evaporation unit to provide an ohmic contact to the device.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Structural Analysis
The crystalline nature and structural properties of the
as-grown ZnO nanorods were studied by using X-ray
Fig. 3. AFM Images of ZnO nanorods on Si substrate (a) 2-D and (b) 3-D with AZO buffer layer.
J. Nanoelectron. Optoelectron., 10, 1–5, 2015
Fabrication and Characterization of ZnO Nanorods/Pd–Au Contacts
diffractometer (XRD) [Rigaku Smartlab, with Cu-K radi-
ation ( = 1
540568 Å)]. The samples prepared by RF
sputtering were pre-annealed at 773 K. The XRD diffrac-
tion peaks of ZnO nanorods were found at 34 .29 (highly
oriented) and 62 .77 corresponding to (002) and (103)
planes in the ZnO nanorods respectively. The XRD images
are shown in Figure 1. The XRD pattern reveals that AZO
buffer layer and pre-annealing improves the quality of ZnO
nanorods, as well as crystalline nature of the samples.
It also shows that (002) intensity is highly dominating
and ZnO nanorods are grown towards preferred direction.
Our results pertaining to XRD diffraction peaks of ZnO
nanorods grown on (110) p-Si substrates at (100), (002),
(101) and (102) are similar to those reported by others.31
The crystallite size (D) of the ZnO nanorods was obtained
from the Debye-Scherrer equation32
D=
0
9
(1)
 cos 
where  is the full-width at half maximum (FWHM) and
peaks are located towards an angle 2. The extracted
parameters from the XRD results are listed in Table I. The
strain in the ZnO nanorods was obtained as26


 1
= − × (2)
D cos  tan 
3
Fabrication and Characterization of ZnO Nanorods/Pd–Au Contacts Giri et al.

Table II. Parameters obtained by AFM studies of ZnO nanorods with (J. A. WOOLLAM Co. Inc. (model VB-400)). In our
AZO buffer layer on Si substrate. experiment the thickness was measured to be ∼600 nm.
Grain size (nm) Ra (nm) Rq (nm) Rt (nm) The optical bandgap was calculated by using Eq. (3)
given by:33
247 48 62.7 35.6  

Rmax − Rmin
2t = ln (3)

R − Rmin
3.2. Surface Morphological Analysis
The surface topography and size of the sample of nanorods where R is the reflectance,  is the attenuation constant
were determined using a scanning electron microscope and t is the film thickness. The optical bandgap was
(ZEISS EVO MA 15; USA). Figure 2(a) shows the SEM estimated by extrapolating a graph between  ln
Rmax −
image of the AZO buffer layer while Figure 2(b) depicts Rmin /
R − Rmin 2 and photon energy (h
) shown in
2-D SEM image of the ZnO nanorods. Figure 2(c) shows
a cross-sectional SEM image of the as-synthesized ZnO
axis gives the optical bandgap of ZnO nanorods. The
nanorods grown on a p-Si substrate on 1 m scale. It
is seen from the SEM images that ZnO nanorods grown
by our procedure are highly dense and well aligned. The
typical average height and diameter of the nanorods were
618 nm and 474 nm respectively.
3.3. Surface Topographical Analysis
The roughness and topography of the ZnO nanorods were
studied using Atomic Force microscopy (AFM) from Agi-
lent, USA (Model: 5500). The AFM images are shown
in Figure 3. The grain size, average roughness (Ra , root
mean square (rms) roughness (Rq and total roughness
(Rt are measured to be 247 nm, 48 nm, 62.7 nm and
35.6 nm respectively for the ZnO nanorods of a typical
sample under study. The values were estimated on the
basis of the AFM results using picoimage software. All
the parameters are listed in Table II. It is observed that
AFM results are in close agreement with those estimated
on the basis of SEM results.
3.4. Optical Analysis
eqv/kT − 1 (4)
The thickness and optical bandgap of ZnO nanorods
were determined by using Ellipsometric measurements
Fig. 4. (a) Optical bandgap of ZnO nanorods on Si substrate and (b) I–V characteristics of the device.
4 J. Nanoelectron. Optoelectron., 10, 1–5, 2015
Figure 4(a). The point at which slope of the curve crosses
h
study reveals that the optical bandgap depends on the
processing of the film. Similar observations are for ZnO
nanorods reported by others.21
3.5. Electrical Analysis
The current–voltage (I–V) characteristics for the
Au/Pd/ZnO/Si/Al contact were measured using Semicon-
ductor Device Analyzer (Agilent, USA Model: B1500A)
by mounting the samples on the probe station. Figure 4(b)
shows double y curve which correspond to the forward
and reverse I–V Characteristics in the voltage range from
−5 to 5 V under dark condition at room temperature.
The inset in Figure 4(b) illustrates the device structure.
It is clearly seen that the device exhibits a good rectifi-
cation characteristics. The rectification ratio of 2534 at
±5 V was obtained in the present case and the value is a
good agreement with the results reported by others.31 34
The current across a Schottky diode, the barrier height
(B and ideality factor () have been calculated using
by thermionic emission theory. The I–V relation can be
expressed as
I = I0
where I0 = AA∗ T 2 e−q/kT .
Giri et al.
Table III. Parameters obtained by I–V characteristics using semicon-
ductor device analyzer.
Parameters Experimental data
Barrier height (B 0.803 eV
Ideality factor
 4.06
Rectification ratio 2534
Reverse saturation current 7
4232 × 10−10 A
 is the ideality factor, k is the Boltzmann constant and
T is the absolute temperature. A is the Schottky contact
area, A∗ the effective Richardson constant (theoretically
A∗ = 32 × 104 Am−2 K−2 for ZnO and B is the bar-
rier height. The reverse saturation current was observed
7
4232 × 10−10 A at −5 V. The barrier height (B and
ideality factor () were calculated 0.803 eV and 4.06
respectively. A large ideality factor is attributed to signif-
icant recombination at the interface of metal and the ZnO
nanorods.35 The device parameters were summarized in
Table III.
4. CONCLUSION
ZnO nanorods were successfully grown by RF sputter-
ing on p-silicon (100) substrate containing a pre-deposited
buffer layer of AZO. The structural and morphological
studies confirmed the formation of high quality of ZnO
nanorods. The buffer layer facilitates the growth of ZnO
nanorods in a symmetrical and vertical aligned manner.
The optical bandgap for the ZnO nanorods was measured
to be 3.35 eV. The I–V characteristics reveal that the device
has a good rectifying behavior with a rectification ratio and
ideality factor of ∼2534 and 4.06 respectively. The struc-
ture can be used for various electronic and optoelectronic
applications.
Acknowledgments: The authors are grateful to the
Center for Interdisciplinary Research (CIR), M.N.N.I.T
Allahabad for providing the research facilities for car-
rying out the experimental work.
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