Catalyst-free highly vertically aligned ZnO nanoneedle arrays grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy

This work describes the growth of highly vertically aligned ZnO nanoneedle arrays on wafer-scale catalyst-free c-plane sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy under high Zn flux conditions. The photoluminescence spectrum of the as-grown samples reveals strong free exciton emissions and donor-bound exciton emissions with an excellent full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 1.4 meV. The field emission of highly vertically aligned ZnO nanoneedle arrays closely follows the Fowler–Nordheim theory. The turn-on electric field was about 5.9 V/µm with a field enhancement factor β of around 793.