We report on ZnO nanopowder induced light scattering for improved visualization of emission sites in carbon nanotube films and arrays. We observed a significant reduction of the internal multiple light scattering phenomena, which are characteristic for ZnO micropowders.
The microsized grains of the commercially available ZnO:Zn (P 15) were reduced to the nanometre scale by pulsed laser ablation at an oxygen ambient pressure of 10 kPa. Our investigations show no crystalline change and no shift of the broad green emission peak at 500 nm for the ZnO nanopowder.
For the application in field emission displays, we demonstrate the possibility of achieving cathodoluminescence with a fine pitch size of 100 micrometers of the patterned pixels without requiring additional electron beam focusing and without a black matrix. Moreover, the presented results show the feasibility of employing ZnO nanopowder as a detection material.