Photoluminescence study of ZnO nanosheets with embedded Cu nanocrystals.

In this work a simple method to produce the ZnO nanosheets (NSs) with inclusions of Cu nanocrystals by means of electrochemical etching without the necessity of any surfactant has been presented. The Raman spectroscopy demonstrates that the amorphous samples of ZnO-Cu present appreciable changes in its vibrational behavior after the thermal treatment at 400°C in ambient atmosphere. The study of Photoluminescence (PL) shows monotonous increasing the bands centered in 3.07, 2.41, 2.03 and 1.57 eV versus etching time in freshly prepared samples. The intensity variation of the PL bands, the changes in vibrational behavior, as well as the impact of the copper content and preparation conditions allow identifying emission inside the visible spectral range related to the surface defects that is interesting for the future possible application this ZnO system in room temperature white light-emitting diodes.