Growth and optical characterization of diamond-shaped zinc oxide nanostructures deposited by pulsed laser ablation

We report on the growth of zinc oxide diamond-shaped nanostructured thin films by pulsed laser deposition technique on silicon substrate at different substrate temperatures (room temperature to 600  $^{circ }$ C) and at fixed background pressure of oxygen using Nd:YAG laser at a wavelength of 532 nm. The influence of substrate temperature on the grain size, surface morphology and optical properties is characterized by x-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscope, photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy. x-ray diffraction results show that the grain size increases with increasing substrate temperature during the growth of ZnO thin films due to improved crystallinity but at 450  $^{circ }$ C the crystallinity degrades. It is attributed to the formation of diamond-shaped ZnO nanostructures as supported by the field emission scanning electron microscope images. Consequently, increase in photoluminescence and Raman intensities is also attributed to the formation of diamond-shaped structures. The growth of diamond-shaped structure is discussed in the light of growth of various planes in the hexagonal structure of ZnO.