Single step chemical growth of ZnMgS nanorod thin film and its DFT study

ZnMgS NR visible light photosensor by simple one step chemical bath deposition technique. [Display omitted] •ZnMgS one dimensional nanorod (NR) thin films using single step chemical approach.•The structural and morphological investigations confirms the formation vertically aligned 1-D nanorods.•In electrical study, ZnMgS NR thin film showed a response of 99% photosensitivity under illumination of 100 W/cm2.•The experimental results of ZnMgS NR thin film prove it be a promising candidate for visible light photosensor. Herein, ZnMgS nanorod (NR) thin film has been grown by facile single step chemical bath deposition technique. Initially, vertically aligned ZnMgS NR having ∼3 µm length and diameter of ∼200 nm were deposited on commercial glass substrate. The morphology characterizations of this nanorod thin film were observed by FE-SEM and TEM. The randomly oriented hexagonal type nanorods were grown on the glass surface. The strong and highly intense (0 0 2) peak in the XRD pattern along with the calculated low compressive strain indicates vertical growth of high-quality crystalline ZnMgS nanorods. The films showed a direct band transition at ∼3.62 eV. The photosensing properties of NR thin film of ZnMgS showed an excellent photoresponsivity of 34.6 μA/Watt and photosensitivity 99% respectively under illumination of 100 W/cm2 at a bias voltage 5 V. The obtained experimental results were found to be consistent with theoretical results obtained using DFT.