CdO:Ag semiconductor nanowires grown by spray method

•Ag doped CdO thin films have grown by spray pyrolysis method.•SEM images show that Ag doped CdO semiconductor thin films have nanowire structures.•The electrical conductivity rising with Ag dopant.•The band gap of CdO can be controlled with Ag dopant. The silver (Ag) doped cadmium oxide (CdO) semiconductor nanowires grown by spray pyrolysis technique have been analyzed for comparing to CdO with structural, optical, electrical and morphological through XRD (X-ray diffraction), UV–Vis spectroscopy, I–V (current–voltage), PL (photoluminescence), SEM (scanning electron microscope). XRD results shown that the thin films have a cubic form CdO and have sharp and narrow peaks in (111), (200), (220), (311) and (222) planes. UV–Vis analysis measurement shown that the bandgap of CdO thin films decreased, then increased with rising Ag dopant with Burstein-Moss effect and the transmittance of undoped and Ag doped CdO thin films is high between 65% and 68%. PL measurements shown that all thin films have UV emission around 384 nm (3.24 eV), blue emission around 420 nm (2.95 eV), green emission around 532 nm (2.33 eV), around red emission 738 nm (1.68 eV) and infrared emission around 794 nm (1.56 eV) emissions. SEM images shown the nanowire structure formation with Ag doping of the samples. I–V measurements at room temperature have shown us that both samples illustrate good electrical conductivity and increase the electrical conductivity of nanowire structures observed with Ag dopant in SEM images.