Optical and electrical properties of hydrothermally prepared CdTe nanowires

The hydrothermal process was used to synthesize CdTe nanowires (NWs). Various analytical techniques were used to characterize the obtained NWs. The wire diameters were in the range 35–60 nm, and the lengths were >5 μm. The CdTe NWs had zinc-blende crystal structure. The NWs had high uniformity and high yield. FTIR analysis revealed the presence of the characteristic vibrational spectra of oxygen and hydrogen bounded to Cd and Te in CdTe NWs. The optical band gap value was 2.09 eV. The CdTe NWs showed a strong red emission band centered around 620.3 nm. The conductivity measurements were carried out in the temperature range 300–500 K and in air atmosphere. Two types of conduction mechanisms were observed with activation energies of 0.27 and 0.17 eV at high and low temperature regions, respectively. These results validate the potential of CdTe NWs for optoelectronic applications.