ABSTRACT
Ion beam technology is a fundamental tool in the semiconductor industry that it has found numerous vital applications. Broad beam ion sources are commonly used in surface cleaning, material deposition, and dopant implantation, while field emitter ion sources are used in nanofabrication. ZnO is a wide band gap semiconductor material. With a direct band gap of 3.34 eV and an exciton binding energy of 60 meV, ZnO is a plausible candidate for UV light emitting application. Besides, ZnO also exhibits a rich variety of nanostructures. In this chapter, the research work done by our group over the past few years is summarized, which includes the development of broad beam capillaritron ion sources, formation of metallic zinc nanocones, ZnO QDs on ion beam textured substrates, and ZnO nanowires by thermal oxidation. Special emphasis is given to the characterization of ZnO nanowires prepared by thermal oxidation. Our results show that by utilizing ion beam processing to minimize impurities in zinc, ZnO nanowires obtained by thermal oxidation show excellent PL property, fast photoresponse, and exceptional high photoconductive gain.
