Growth of high quality rutile TiO 2 thin film using ZnO buffer layer on Si(100) substrate

Abstract

The TiO 2 rutile thin films were grown on Si(100) substrates with ZnO buffer layer at a substrate temperature of 500 °C by radio frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering. In order to investigate the effect of buffer layer thickness on the growth of the TiO 2 film, the ZnO buffer layers were deposited in the thickness range of 70–150 nm. The thickness of the TiO 2 films was about 200 nm identical for all the samples. The crystal structure of the buffer layers and the TiO 2 thin films was characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD). The XRD spectra confirmed that TiO 2 rutile film with high crystalline quality was achieved on the ZnO buffer layer, which had a great relation to the improvement of the crystalline quality of the ZnO buffer layer. The surface morphologies of the TiO 2 rutile thin films were evaluated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The roughness of the TiO 2 thin films became smoother as the thickness of the ZnO buffer layer increased.