Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Radiation Measurements journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/radmeas Structure, electrical properties and luminescence of ZnO nanocrystals deposited in SiO 2 /Si track templates Sholpan Giniyatova a,* , Alma Dauletbekova a , Zein Baimukhanov a , Liudmila Vlasukova b , Abdirash Akilbekov a , Abay Usseinov a , Artem Kozlovskiy c , Aiman Akylbekovа a , Aibek Seitbayev a,c , Zhakyp Karipbayev a a L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, 2, Satpayev str., Astana, 010008, Kazakhstan b A.N. Sevchenko Institute of Applied Physics Problem, 7, Kurchatov str., Minsk, 220045, Belarus c Astana Branch of Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/2 Abylaikhan ave., Astana, 010008, Kazakhstan ARTICLE INFO Keywords: SiO 2 /Si track template Template synthesis Electrochemical deposition Nanocrystals Sphalerite ABSTRACT ZnO nanoclusters obtained by electrochemical deposition (ECD) of zinc in track template a-SiO 2 /Si-n have been studied. The structure SiO 2 /Si was irradiated at DC-60 cyclotron with 200 MeV Xe ions (Φ = 10 8 ions/cm 2 ) with subsequent chemical etching in the diluted hydrofluoric acid (HF). Electrochemical deposition (ECD) of Zn in track template was carried out in the potentiostatic mode. The surface of samples was examined using a SEM JSM 7500F microscope. X-ray diffraction analysis was carried out using a D8 ADVANCE ECO X-ray dif- fractometer. According to XRD, the electrodeposition of zinc into the a-SiO 2 /Si-n track template resulted in a formation of zincblende (ZB) ZnO nanocrystals. Current-voltage characteristics and photoluminescence of SiO 2 / Si track template with ZnO ZB nanocrystals were investigated. 1. Introduction Zinc oxide is a wide-bandgap semiconductor with unique electro- physical and optical properties. The zinc oxide-based materials can be used as optoelectronic converters, fluorescent materials, transparent electrodes, sensitive elements of gas and biological sensors, catalysts, X- ray and gamma radiation detectors. These applications for ZnO are commonly considered for the wurtzite phase. This is due to the fact that under ambient conditions, ZnO has the wurzite (WS) crystal structure. ZnO WS nanoparticles of various morphologies, such as nanorods, tet- rapods (Zi-Qiang et al., 2006; Jun and Yintang, 2008; Norton et al., 2006), nanowires (Prabhu et al., 2014; Maensiri et al., 2006), nano- helices (Castro and Gouvea, 2016), and microcheerios (Nakamoto, 1997) as well as ZnO nanocrystals in a-SiO 2 /Si-n track templates (Dauletbekova et al., 2018) have been synthesized. ZnO phase with zincblende (ZB) structure is metastable. ZnO monocrystals with zincblende structure has not been obtained yet (Ellmer et al., 2010; Özgür et al., 2005). This phase is stabilized during heteroepitaxial growth of ZnO films on cubic-structured substrates (Ellmer et al., 2010; Özgür et al., 2005; Ashrafi and Jagadish, 2007). Zinc oxide with rock salt (RS) structure is obtained at high pres- sures, and it can exist in nanostructured forms and due to stabilization in cubic-structured matrix (MgO, NaCl) (Solozhenko et al., 2011). At high pressures (about 10 GPa), the WS→RS transformation was observed, which is studied both experimentally and theoretically (Koster et al., 2015). The properties of ZnO-WS have been studied very well, opposite other two phases. The review (Ashrafia and Jagadish, 2007) describes the possible applications of different ZnO crystal structural modifica- tions in semiconductor technology. The high symmetry of the crystal structure allows us to expect some advantages such as lower carrier scattering, higher doping efficiencies, etc., which can be used in various devices, radiation detectors. The creation of track templates on the basis of SiO 2 /Si and poly- meric materials, as well as the electrochemical deposition of various materials into track templates were reported in (Norton et al., 2004; Ivanova et al., 2007; ToimilMolares et al., 2001; Kadyrzhanov et al., 2017; Rusakov et al., 2017). The purpose of this study is an investiga- tion of ZnO-ZB nanocrystals obtained by electrochemical deposition into the a-SiO 2 /Si-n track template. It should be noted that the Si- substrate makes it possible to easily incorporate the obtained structures into silicon technology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radmeas.2019.04.001 Received 19 October 2018; Received in revised form 26 February 2019; Accepted 1 April 2019 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: giniyat_shol@mail.ru (S. Giniyatova). Radiation Measurements 125 (2019) 52–56 Available online 24 April 2019 1350-4487/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. T