Amorphous semiconductor is a quickly developed new subject

and is one of the most active area in material science. Because amorphous semiconductor is a covalent and unordered meshwork

hasn’t long periodic structure

so amorphous semiconductor has different photoelectric characters compared with crystal semiconductor

and has great potential application. As a wide direct band gap semiconductor material

ZnO is of interest for short wavelength electro-optical devices such as light-emitting diodes and laser diodes

especially for lasers with low thresholds at high temperatures due to its large exciton binding energy of 59meV. In recent years

there has been great interest in growth of ZnO by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)

molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)

sol-gel

reactive evaporation

thermal decomposition

and electro-deposition and so on

but all of these ways are used to prepare crystal ZnO

there are few reports on preparation of amorphous ZnO. In this paper

we synthesized ZnO powder by solid-state pyrolytic reaction

and charactered by XPS

XRD

TEM

infrared spectrum and PL. The XPS indicated that the sample is ZnO

and the TEM reveals the ZnO has not crystal structure. XRD proved the ZnO is amorphous and include little crystal ZnO

and can make a conclusion that amorphous ZnO include complex H

2

O from the infrared spectrum. The amorphous ZnO shows an extremely enhanced ultraviolet emission (visible emission was quenched fully). Study on amorphous ZnO will be helpful for fabricating optoelectronic devices and accelerate the development of amorphous semiconductor.