Piezoelectric and opto-electrical properties of silver-doped ZnO nanorods synthesized by low temperature aqueous chemical method

In this paper, we have synthesized Zn1−xAgxO (x = 0, 0.03, 0.06, and 0.09) nanorods (NRs) via the hydrothermal method at low temperature on silicon substrate. The characterization and comparison between the different Zn1−xAgxO samples, indicated that an increasing Ag concentration from x = 0 to a maximum of x = 0.09; All samples show a preferred orientation of (002) direction with no observable change of morphology. As the quantity of the Ag dopant was changed, the transmittances, as well as the optical band gap were decreased. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data clearly indicate the presence of Ag in ZnO crystal lattice. A nanoindentation-based technique was used to measure the effective piezo-response of different concentrations of Ag for both direct and converse effects. The value of the piezoelectric coefficient (d33) as well as the piezo potential generated from the ZnO NRs and Zn1−xAgxO NRs was found to decrease with the increase of Ag fraction. The finding in this investigation reveals that Ag doped ZnO is not suitable for piezoelectric energy harvesting devices