Zn3N2nanowires: Growth, properties and oxidation

Abstract

Zinc nitride (Zn3N2) nanowires (NWs) with diameters of 50 to 100 nm and a cubic crystal structure have been grown on 1 nm Au/Al2O3via the reaction of Zn with NH3including H2between 500°C and 600°C. These exhibited an optical band gap of ≈ 3.2 eV, estimated from steady state absorption-transmission spectroscopy. We compared this with the case of ZnO NWs and discussed the surface oxidation of Zn3N2NWs which is important and is expected to lead to the formation of a Zn3N2/ZnO core-shell NW, the energy band diagram of which was calculated via the self-consistent solution of the Poisson-Schrödinger equations within the effective mass approximation by taking into account a fundamental energy band gap of 1.2 eV. In contrast, only highly oriented Zn3N2layers with a cubic crystal structure and an optical band gap of ≈ 2.9 eV were obtained on Au/Si(001) using the same growth conditions. © 2013 Zervos et al.