Defects and Resistive Switching of Zinc Oxide Nanorods with Copper Addition Grown by Hydrothermal Method

Vertically aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods (NRs) were hydrothermally synthesized from 0.1 M zinc acetate solution on ZnO-seeded Si(100) substrates. ZnO NRs with copper addition were also synthesized by introducing copper acetate into the zinc acetate solution to investigate the effects of copper addition on the growth and resistive switching of the ZnO nanorods. The ZnO NRs had hexagonal wurtzite structure with preferential c-axis orientation. Copper was mainly present as copper oxide (CuO) secondary phase which produces many visible defects, and the lattice fringes of the ZnO NRs are thereby damaged. Copper addition quenches the ultraviolet emission of the ZnO NRs but enhances their green emission. Additionally, copper addition shifts the Zn 2p and O 1s peaks of the x-ray photoelectron spectra towards lower binding energy, which may result from an increase of oxygen vacancies. ZnO NRs with and without copper addition exhibit reversible bipolar resistive switching. The copper addition shrinks the deviations of programming voltages, with a decrease in the minimal set voltage and an increase in the minimal reset voltage, which can probably be attributed to the introduced oxygen vacancies and the copper-related defects.