Structural and optical properties of nanostructured ZnO thin films deposited on quartz glass

Abstract

Nanostructured ZnO thin films have been prepared on quartz glass substrates. The structure and optical properties of ZnO films is investigated systematically using X-ray diffraction, Field emission scan electron microscope (FESEM), and room temperature photoluminescence (PL). Two methods were applied to fabricate ZnO films in a conventional pulsed laser deposition apparatus using metallic zinc as targets. One is high temperature (500oC~ 700oC) oxidation of the metallic Zinc film that obtained by pulsed laser deposition. The room temperature PL spectrum of the ZnO films shows that single violet luminescence emission centering on 424nm (or 2.90eV) without any accompanying deep-level emission and UV emission films was obtained. The violet emission was attributed to interstitial zinc in the films. The other is pulse laser ablation of Zn target in oxygen atmosphere at low temperature (100oC~ 250oC). Nanostructured ZnO film with c-axis