Stimulated Optical Emission from ZnO Nanobelts Grown with a Simple Carbothermal Evaporation Method

This work reports on the stimulated optical emission characteristics of ZnO nanobelts that were grown with a simple carbothermal evaporation method without using any catalyst or dopant. Such nanobelts grew along the a-axis enclosed by {0001} and {01-10} base planes through a vapor-solid mechanism. Room temperature and temperature-dependent photoluminescence results indicated that such nanobelts were of high optical qualityand were better than those nanobelts grown from dopant-assisted thermal evaporation or oxidation methods. Amplified spontaneous emission was observed from ZnO nanobelts with low-growth density while random laser was observed for high-density samples with increasing optical pumping density.