Cathodoluminescence inhomogeneity in ZnO nanorods

Luminescence properties of vertically aligned, crystalline ZnO nanorods are studied by cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy and microscopy. Results show that luminescence characteristics vary dramatically with location on the nanorod as well as CL excitation depth. CL inhomogeneity is observed between the nanorod tip and sidewalls, accompanied by a variation in the chemical environment of surface oxygen ions as probed by photoemission spectroscopy. Our findings demonstrate that CL can provide useful information on the local optical properties of nanostructured materials, which is simply beyond the capability of other methods. © 2008 American Institute of Physics

Distribution of visible luminescence centers in hydrogen-doped ZnO

ZnO crystals have been investigated by scanning cathodoluminescence microscopy and spectroscopy at 80 K following hydrogen incorporation by plasma exposure. The intensity of the ZnO near-band-edge (NBE) emission is greatly enhanced while the defect-related green emission is quenched following plasma treatment. These effects are attributed to the passivation of zinc vacancies by hydrogen. The green and yellow intensities and their intensity ratios to the NBE vary with excitation depth for both undoped and H-doped ZnO crystals. The intensities of the green and yellow emissions exhibit sublinear dependencies on electron beam excitation density while the NBE intensity increases linearly with the excitation density. These saturation effects with increasing excitation density must be taken into account when assessing defects in ZnO by luminescence characterization. © Copyright Materials Research Society 2011

Blue shift in the luminescence spectra of MEH-PPV films containing ZnO nanoparticles

Luminescence properties of nanocomposites consisting of ZnO nanoparticles in a conjugated polymer, poly [2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl hexyloxy)-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV), were investigated. Photoluminescence measurements reveal a blue shift in the emission spectrum of MEH-PPV upon incorporation of ZnO nanoparticles into the polymer film while the emission is increasingly quenched with increasing ZnO concentration. In contrast, the structure of the polymer and its conjugation length are not affected by the presence of ZnO nanoparticles (up to 16 wt% ZnO) as revealed by Raman spectroscopy. The blue shift and photoluminescence quenching are explained by the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs at the MEH-PPV/ZnO interface and the charging of the nanoparticles. Crown Copyright © 2008

Electron Transport Chain Is Biochemically Linked to Pilus Assembly Required for Polymicrobial Interactions and Biofilm Formation in the Gram-Positive Actinobacterium Actinomyces oris.

The Gram-positive actinobacteria Actinomyces spp. are key colonizers in the development of oral biofilms due to the inherent ability of Actinomyces to adhere to receptor polysaccharides on the surface of oral streptococci and host cells. This receptor-dependent bacterial interaction, or coaggregation, requires a unique sortase-catalyzed pilus consisting of the pilus shaft FimA and the coaggregation factor CafA forming the pilus tip. While the essential role of the sortase machine SrtC2 in pilus assembly, biofilm formation, and coaggregation has been established, little is known about trans-acting factors contributing to these processes. We report here a large-scale Tn5 transposon screen for mutants defective in Actinomyces oris coaggregation with Streptococcus oralis We obtained 33 independent clones, 13 of which completely failed to aggregate with S. oralis, and the remainder of which exhibited a range of phenotypes from severely to weakly defective coaggregation. The former had Tn5 insertions in fimA, cafA, or srtC2, as expected; the latter were mapped to genes coding for uncharacterized proteins and various nuo genes encoding the NADH dehydrogenase subunits. Electron microscopy and biochemical analyses of mutants with nonpolar deletions of nuo genes and ubiE, a menaquinone C-methyltransferase-encoding gene downstream of the nuo locus, confirmed the pilus and coaggregation defects. Both nuoA and ubiE mutants were defective in oxidation of MdbA, the major oxidoreductase required for oxidative folding of pilus proteins. Furthermore, supplementation of the ubiE mutant with exogenous menaquinone-4 rescued the cell growth and pilus defects. Altogether, we propose that the A. oris electron transport chain is biochemically linked to pilus assembly via oxidative protein folding.IMPORTANCE The Gram-positive actinobacterium A. oris expresses adhesive pili, or fimbriae, that are essential to biofilm formation and Actinomyces interactions with other bacteria, termed coaggregation. While the critical role of the conserved sortase machine in pilus assembly and the disulfide bond-forming catalyst MdbA in oxidative folding of pilins has been established, little is known about other trans-acting factors involved in these processes. Using a Tn5 transposon screen for mutants defective in coaggregation with Streptococcus oralis, we found that genetic disruption of the NADH dehydrogenase and menaquinone biosynthesis detrimentally alters pilus assembly. Further biochemical characterizations determined that menaquinone is important for reactivation of MdbA. This study supports the notion that the electron transport chain is biochemically linked to pilus assembly in A. oris via oxidative folding of pilin precursors

Observation of Whispering Gallery Modes from hexagonal ZnO microdisks using cathodoluminescence

Zinc oxide hexagonal microdisks with diameters ranging from 3??m up to 15??m were fabricated by thermal chemical vapour deposition. Optical characterisation of ZnO microdisks was performed using low temperature (80?K) cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging and spectroscopy. The microdisks exhibited green luminescence locally distributed near the hexagonal boundary of the ZnO microdisks. High resolution CL spectra of the ZnO microdisks revealed whispering gallery modes (WGMs) emission. The experimentally observed WGMs were in excellent agreement with the predicted theoretical positions calculated using a plane wave model. This work could provide the means for ZnO microdisk devices operating in the green spectral range

Spatial Distribution of Defect Luminescence in ZnO Nanorods: An Investigation by Spectral Cathodoluminescence Imaging

© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim The spatial distribution of ubiquitous green luminescence (GL) in ZnO nanorods is investigated using cathodoluminescence (CL) spectral imaging. The vertically aligned, single-crystal nanorods exhibit a strong GL emission at 2.42 eV at 80 K, attributable to oxygen vacancies. The spectral imaging reveals the GL emission is predominantly located in the surface layer of nanorods; the thickness and intensity of this layer decreases rapidly at elevated temperatures. On the other hand, the near-band-edge emission is weakest near the nanorod edges. The temperature-dependent CL maps are consistent with the properties of a model in which singly ionized oxygen vacancies are stabilized by the surface band bending, which leads to the GL enhancement at the expense of near-band-edge emission. These results demonstrate the utility of spectral CL imaging to map the spatial distribution of defect luminescence in nanostructured materials

Surface electronic properties of ZnO nanoparticles

The surface electronic structure of ZnO nanoparticles has been studied with photoemission and x-ray absorption spectroscopies. Contrary to expectation, ZnO:Zn phosphor nanoparticles were found to contain a lower oxygen vacancy density on the surface than undoped ZnO counterparts, but oxygen vacancies are in different chemical environments. Cathodoluminescence shows intense green luminescence from the ZnO:Zn surface, while the undoped nanoparticles exhibit only the near-band-edge emission. The results indicate the roles of surface oxygen vacancies and their environment in the previously unexplained green luminescence from the ZnO:Zn material. © 2008 American Institute of Physics

A facile method for bright, colour-tunable light-emitting diodes based on Ga-doped ZnO nanorods

© 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd. Bottom-up fabrication of nanowire-based devices is highly attractive for oxide photonic devices because of high light extraction efficiency; however, unsatisfactory electrical injection into ZnO and poor carrier transport properties of nanowires severely limit their practical applications. Here, we demonstrate that ZnO nanorods doped with Ga donors by in situ dopant incorporation during vapour-solid growth exhibit superior optoelectronic properties that exceed those currently synthesised by chemical vapour deposition, and accordingly can be electrically integrated into Si-based photonic devices. Significantly, the doping method was found to improve the nanorod quality by decreasing the concentration of point defects. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) fabricated from the Ga-doped ZnO nanorod/p-Si heterojunction display bright and colour-tunable electroluminescence (EL). These nanorod LEDs possess a dramatically enhanced performance and an order of magnitude higher EL compared with equivalent devices fabricated with undoped nanorods. These results point to an effective route for large-scale fabrication of conductive, single-crystalline ZnO nanorods for photonic and optoelectronic applications

Cathodoluminescence as a method of extracting detailed information from nanophotonics systems: a study of silicon nanocrystals

We investigated Si nanocaystal samples produced by high dose 600 keV Si+ implantation of fused silica and annealing using cathodoluminescence (CL). CL spectra collected under 5-25 keV electron irradiation show similar features to reported photoluminescenc

Kinetics of charge carrier recombination in β- Ga2 O3 crystals

© 2018 American Physical Society. Cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra were measured to determine the characteristics of luminescence bands and carrier dynamics in β-Ga2O3 bulk single crystals. The CL emission was found to be dominated by a broad UV emission peaked at 3.40 eV, which exhibits strong quenching with increasing temperature; however, its spectral shape and energy position remain virtually unchanged. We observed a superlinear increase of CL intensity with excitation density; this kinetics of carrier recombination can be explained in terms of carrier trapping and charge transfer at Fe impurity centers. The temperature-dependent properties of this UV band are consistent with weakly bound electrons in self-trapped excitons with an activation energy of 48±10meV. In addition to the self-trapped exciton emission, a blue luminescence (BL) band is shown to be related to a donor-like defect, which increases significantly in concentration after hydrogen plasma annealing. The point defect responsible for the BL, likely an oxygen vacancy, is strongly coupled to the lattice exhibiting a Huang-Rhys factor of ∼7.3