Low-Temperature Facile Synthesis of Sb-Doped p-Type ZnO Nanodisks and Its Application in Homojunction Light-Emitting Diode

This study explores low-temperature solution-process-based seed-layer-free ZnO p-n homojunction light-emitting diode (LED). In order to obtain p-type ZnO nanodisks (NDs), antimony (Sb) was doped into ZnO by using a facile chemical route at 120 °C. The X-ray photoelectron spectra indicated the presence of (Sb_Zn-2V_Zn) acceptor complex in the Sb-doped ZnO NDs. Using these NDs as freestanding templates, undoped n-type ZnO nanorods (NRs) were epitaxially grown at 95 °C to form ZnO p-n homojunction. The homojunction with a turn-on voltage of 2.5 V was found to be significantly stable up to 100 s under a constant voltage stress of 5 V. A strong orange-red emission was observed by the naked eye under a forward bias of 5 V. The electroluminescence spectra revealed three major peaks at 400, 612, and 742 nm which were attributed to the transitions from Zn_i to VBM, from Zn_i to O_i, and from V_O to VBM, respectively. The presence of these deep-level defects was confirmed by the photoluminescence of ZnO NRs. This study paves the way for future applications of ZnO homojunction LEDs using low-temperature and low-cost solution processes with the controlled use of native defects.