Synthesis of Mn-doped AlN nanobelts via chemical vapor deposition

Mn-doped AlN nanostructures were grown on ceramic substrate by in situ doping of Mn via a catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method using Mn powder, Al powder and NH₃ as the starting materials. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and photoluminescence (PL) were employed to characterize the structure and morphology of the product. It was found that the as-prepared AlN product was wurtzite structure and had a ribbon shape with uniform geometry. The nanobelts were curled and flexible with length up to 10 μm, and the width-to-thickness ratio of these nanobelts was estimated to be 7 with 175 nm wide and 25 nm thick. EDX and XPS demonstrated that Mn was successfully doped into the AlN nanobelts.