Top-down approach for the preparation of Au/ZnO nanostructures by glancing-angle ion irradiation: Morphological, structural and optical studies

We report the 100 keV glancing-angle Xe+ ions irradiation based top down approach for the preparation of ZnO and Au/ZnO hybrid nanostructures and its morphological, structural and optical properties. FESEM micrographs reveal Xe+ ion irradiation favours the nucleation and formation of highly aligned, dense nanostrips like structures. Crystalline structure of ZnO, Xe+ ions irradiated ZnO and Au/ZnO hybrid nanostructures were analysed by grazing incident X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering measurements. The elemental compositions and thickness of the grown nanostructures were estimated using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry analysis. The influence of Xe+ ion irradiation on the photoluminescence (PL) behaviour of ZnO and Au/ZnO hybrid nano- structures were studied in detail using temperature dependent PL measurements in the range of 80-298 K. Strong PL emission associated with free excitons (FX) and its longitudinal optical phonon replicas observed in ion irradiated Au/ZnO hybrid nanostructures clearly reveal the strong coupling of the localized surface plasmons in the Au nanoparticles to the FX in ZnO. Our experimental results reveal ion beam irradiation is one of the effective approaches to tailor the optical properties of ZnO and Au/ZnO hybrid nanostructures.