Growth of "moth-eye" ZnO nanostructures on Si(111), c-Al₂O₃, ZnO and steel substrates by pulsed laser deposition

Self-forming, vertically-aligned, arrays of black-body-like ZnO moth-eye nanostructures were grown on Si(111), c-Al₂O₃, ZnO and high manganese austenitic steel substrates using Pulsed Laser Deposition. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed the nanostructures to be well-crystallised wurtzite ZnO with strong preferential c-axis crystallographic orientation along the growth direction for all the substrates. Cathodoluminescence (CL) studies revealed emission characteristic of the ZnO near band edge for all substrates. Such moth-eye nanostructures have a graded effective refractive index and exhibit black-body characteristics. Coatings with these features may offer improvements in photovoltaic and LED performance. Moreover, since ZnO nanostructures can be grown readily on a wide range of substrates it is suggested that such an approach could facilitate growth of GaN-based devices on mismatched and/or technologically important substrates, which may have been inaccessible till present.