Journal of Crystal Growth 276 (2005) 458–464 Comparative studies on the growth behavior of ZnO nanorods by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition depending on the type of substrates Dong Ju Lee, Jae Young Park, Young Su Yun, Yong Sung Hong, Jong Ha Moon, Byung-Teak Lee, Sang Sub Kim à Photonic and Electronic Thin Film Laboratory, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chonnam National University, 300 Yongbong-dong, Gwangju 500-757, Republic of Korea Received 25 October 2004; accepted 12 November 2004 Communicated by D.P. Norton Available online 23 December 2004 Abstract The growth behavior of ZnO nanorods on various substrates including Si (1 1 1), Si (0 0 1), Al 2 O 3 (0001), GaN/ Al 2 O 3 (0 0 0 1) and ZnO (0 0 0 1) by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition without using any catalyst was investigated in a comparative way. The alignment of ZnO nanorods greatly depends on the substrates used for the growth. The ZnO nanorods grown on Si (1 1 1) and Si (0 0 1) are vertically aligned but randomly oriented in the in-plane direction. The vertically aligned ZnO nanorods grown on Al 2 O 3 (0 0 0 1) show an in-plane alignment with a broad mosaic distribution of 91. In contrast, epitaxially aligned ZnO nanorods with an extremely narrow in-plane and out-of-plane mosaic distribution grow on the lattice-matched substrates such as GaN/Al 2 O 3 (0 0 0 1) and ZnO (0 0 0 1) without showing a continuous interfacial ZnO layer observed in the samples grown on Si (1 1 1), Si (0 0 1) and Al 2 O 3 (0001). Differently from the alignment nature, all the ZnO nanorods exhibit only high band edge emission peaks with no noticeable deep level emissions in the low-temperature photoluminescence measurements, supporting that the crystalline and optical quality of an individual ZnO nanorod is basically similar irrespective of the type of the substrates used. r 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 68.55.Jk; 78.67n; 81.15.Gh Keywords: A1. Crystal morphology; A3. Metalorganic chemical vapor deposition; B1. Nanomaterials; B2. Semiconducting II–VI materials; B3. Light-emitting diodes ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrysgro 0022-0248/$-see front matter r 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2004.11.390 à Corresponding author. Tel.: +82625301702; fax: +82625301699. E-mail address: sangsub@chonnam.ac.kr (S.S. Kim).