Ultrafast luminescence of Ga- and In-doped ZnO ceramics

In the presented work we compare luminescence characteristics of ZnO:Ga and ZnO:In ceramics prepared by hot uniaxial pressing method. Two types of initial powders were used. The first one was nanosized powder prepared by precipitation method. In the second case we used microsized powders and mechanical admixturing the oxides of intended dopant. In both cases doping by the trivalent ions lead to a significant quenching of ZnO visible emission and an increase in near-band-edge luminescence. The study has shown that the type of dopant greatly affects the transmittance of ceramics prepared from nano- and micro sized powders. Several reasons for the specific effect of powder preparation process and a type of introduced dopant, including changes in dopant solubility, their interaction with the grain boundaries, etc., were considered.