Raman silent modes in vertically aligned undoped ZnO nanorods

We report the observation of Raman silent modes of B1low (276cm−1) and B1high (582cm−1) in vertically aligned ZnO nanorods due to the breakdown of translational symmetry. The structural studies reveal the high crystalline nature of the ZnO nanorods on the lattice mismatched silicon substrates. The dominant donor bound exciton emission and the phonon replicas signify the good quality of the nanorods which substantiate that the anomalous Raman modes could not be attributed to the intrinsic point defects. Further, our results show that the observed silent modes of wurtzite-ZnO become Raman active due to the breakdown of the wave-vector selection rule by loss of translational symmetry induced by nanorods geometry.