Synthesis of cobalt doped ZnO nanorods by an acidic pH independent wet chemical method

Diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs), produced by doping transition metal ions into semiconductor lattice, have attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to their applications in spintronic devices, such as magnetic field sensors, galvanic isolators, magneto resistance random access memory (MRAM). Some advantages of spintronic devices are higher speed, greater efficiency, and better stability [1]. DMSs based on II-VI semiconductors have been widely studied because of their potential applications. There are several experimental reports about the existence ofroom-temperature ferromagnetism of Co doped ZnO [2, 3]. Besides, ZnO has a wide band gap energy (3.37 eV at room temperature) and large xciton binding energy (60 meV), so it is one of the most promising materials for optoelectronics. In this work we describe a wet chemical method with acidic aqueous solution to synthesized Co-doped ZnO nanorods. These nanorods have perfect hexagonal facets. The final products have the same morphology, Raman scattering and photoluminescence characteristic using different initial pHs of solution in a wide range. So it is a convenient method for synthesis Co-doped ZnO nanorods.