Aqueous solution synthesis of ZnO for application in optoelectronics

Recently, ZnO has garnered widespread attention in the semiconductor community for its large set of useful properties, which include a wide bandgap and its resulting optical transparency, a large exciton binding energy, a significant piezoelectric response, and good electrical conductivity. In many ways, it shares many properties with a widely used and technologically important semiconductor GaN, which is widely used for blue LEDs and lasers. However, ZnO cannot substitute for GaN in most optoelectronic applications, because it cannot be doped p-type. On the other hand, unlike many traditional, covalently bonded semiconductors like GaN, ZnO can be easily formed aqueous solutions at close to room temperature and pressure in the form of large crystals or a variety of nanostructures, making possible applications that are normally very difficult with traditional semiconductors.