Coating of ZnO Films Step by Step on Glass Substrate by Magnetron Sputtering and Thermal Oxidation of Zinc

A.      Zendehnam; M.      Zarrinkhameh; M.      Shirazi; M.      Hosseini

Abstract

Zinc Oxide(ZnO) thin films with appropriate thickness (300nm) were produced with repeated coating of Zinc(Zn) film followed by thermal oxidation ,(multi-layer,100+100+100, 200+100, 300 nm). The effect of this way of deposition on the optical and the structural properties of ZnO thin films are investigated. The sample, which was obtained with three steps of coating, showed higher transmittance and lower structural defects due to a lower Urbach energy and photoluminescence intensity and also it showed good optical stability with temperature and period of annealing. To study the structural characterization X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) of the produced ZnO samples were carried out and the obtained results from these analysis on the grain size studies showed good agreements.

Keywords: ZnO film, Optical properties, XRD, PL, SEM, AFM, n-type semiconductor, thermal oxidation, magnetron sputtering methods, refractive index, transmittance, Urbach energy, structural disorder, annealing, extinction coefficient