Structural defects in an epitaxial ZnO∕(011¯2) r-plane sapphire studied by high-resolution electron microscopy and computer simulation

Abstract

The structure of planar defects in ZnO films on (011¯2) r-plane sapphire was studied by the combination of high-resolution electron microscopy and computer simulations. The dominant defects present in these films were identified as a type I1 intrinsic-stacking fault with a displacement vector of (a∕6)[202¯3] and a density of ∼6×104cm−1, lying in the (0001) basal plane. We found the formation of these stacking faults to be growth related, corresponding to the face-centered-cubic stacking sequence in wurtzite ZnO.