ZnO NCs were prepared by etching Zn sheets and annealing in ambient air at 200–400 °C.
No monotonic change of crystal lattice parameters vs annealing temperature is revealed.
The correlation between varying the FE emission peak and XRD parameters is detected.
Donor-acceptor pair (DAP) nature of orange, yellow and green defects is confirmed.
The types of shallow donors and deep acceptors in DAPs have been discussed.