Visible Luminescence of Rare Earth Ions Doped Amorphous Zinc Oxide Thin Films Grown by Sputtering Technique

Abstract

AbstractWe report on the luminescence of rare earth (RE) (Sm, Er, Tm) ions doped ZnO films grown by the rf-magnetron sputtering technique. Samples were insitu doped with Sm ion or with Sm, Er, and Tm ions simultaneously without any intentional co-dopants and deposited on c-Si or quartz substrates at low temperatures. Selected ZnO:RE samples were thermally annealed in 200ºC-1000ºC temperature range in oxygen or argon gas at ambient pressure. As-grown and annealed samples were amorphous (a-ZnO) as was confirmed by the X-ray analysis. Furthermore, a-ZnO:RE samples were investigated by energy diffraction, photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence. In general, CL spectra of as-grown RE-doped a-ZnO films show characteristic emission lines due to 4f-shell transitions of RE3+ ions. Optical excitation of as-grown a-ZnO doped with RE ions using above the bandgap excitation resulted in strong host emission overlapped with weak RE3+ emission bands. It was observed that a thermal annealing process promotes changes of RE ions' environments resulting in significant 4f-shell transition luminescence intensity quenching.