Microstructure and Optical Properties of E-Beam Evaporated Zinc Oxide Films—Effects of Decomposition and Surface Desorption

• Main Authors: Lukasz Skowronski, Arkadiusz Ciesielski, Aleksandra Olszewska, Robert Szczesny, Mieczyslaw Naparty, Marek Trzcinski, Antoni Bukaluk
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-08-01
• Series: Materials
• Subjects: ZnO; decomposition; segregation; annealing; optical constants; microstructure
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/13/16/3510

Zinc oxide films have been fabricated by the electron beam physical vapour deposition (PVD) technique. The effect of substrate temperature during fabrication and annealing temperature (carried out in ultra high vacuum conditions) has been investigated by means of atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry. It was found that the layer deposited at room temperature is composed of Zn and ZnO crystallites with a number of orientations, whereas those grown at 100 and 200 <inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><msup><mrow></mrow><mo>∘</mo></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula>C consist of ZnO grains and exhibit privileged growth direction. Presented results clearly show the influence of ZnO decomposition and segregation of Zn atoms during evaporation and post-deposition annealing on microstructure and optical properties of zinc oxide films.