Abstract
In this work, we reported a comparative study of ZnO thin films grown on quartz glass and sapphire (001) substrates through magnetron sputtering and high-temperature annealing. Firstly, the ZnO thin films were deposited on the quartz glass and sapphire (001) substrates in the same conditions by magnetron sputtering. Afterwards, the sputtered ZnO thin films underwent an annealing process at 600 °C for 1 h in an air atmosphere to improve the quality of the films. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet-visible spectra, photoluminescence spectra, and Raman spectra were used to investigate the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of the both as-received ZnO thin films. The ZnO thin films grown on the quartz glass substrates possess a full width of half maximum value of 0.271° for the (002) plane, a surface root mean square value of 0.50 nm and O vacancies/defects of 4.40% in the total XPS O 1s peak. The comparative investigation reveals that the whole properties of the ZnO thin films grown on the quartz glass substrates are comparable to those grown on the sapphire (001) substrates. Consequently, ZnO thin films with high quality grown on the quartz glass substrates can be achieved by means of magnetron sputtering and high-temperature annealing at 600 °C.
Highlights
Semiconductor materials play a critical role in modern society and have been made into light emitting diodes (LEDs) [1,2,3], surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices [4], sensors [5,6,7,8], solar cells [9], and so on [4,10,11,12], which significantly promote our life quality
The as-received ZnO thin film grown on the quartz glass substrate is much denser than that grown on the sapphire (001) substrate
The residual stress is normally calculated detections revealed that the ZnO thin film grown on the quartz glass substrate had a better from the E2 mode based on the following equation [26]: crystalline quality than that grown on the sapphire (001) substrate
Summary
Semiconductor materials play a critical role in modern society and have been made into light emitting diodes (LEDs) [1,2,3], surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices [4], sensors [5,6,7,8], solar cells [9], and so on [4,10,11,12], which significantly promote our life quality. MOCVD, MBE, and PLD are beneficial for forming single crystalline ZnO thin films, but the cost is usually high. Both thermal evaporation and the sol–gel method are cheap for synthesizing polycrystalline or well-preferred orientation ZnO thin films. It is well known that the glass substrates are much cheaper than sapphire substrates It has an important significance for growing ZnO thin films with high quality on the glass substrates. We report a comparative investigation of ZnO thin films on the quartz glass and sapphire substrates by means of magnetron sputtering and high-temperature annealing in order to optimize the technological parameters for preparing ZnO films of high quality on the quartz glass substrates
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
