The role of growth atmosphere on the structural and optical quality of defect free ZnO films for strong ultraviolet emission

Highly c-axis oriented wurtzite structured ZnO thin films were deposited on silicon substrates using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) by ablating a ZnO target in different atmospheres, including vacuum, argon and oxygen in the deposition chamber. The stress in the films was shown to vary from -3.83 to -0.03 GPa as a function of the chamber atmosphere. The minimum compressive stress (-0.03 GPa) was observed for the oxygen atmosphere. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data indicated that the O1s peak consists of three components designated as O1 (due to ZnO), O2 (due to defects) and O3 (due to adsorbed species). A small defect level emission was obtained in the luminescence spectra of the ZnO film deposited in the oxygen atmosphere, while strong ultraviolet (UV) emission was observed for the ZnO films deposited in the vacuum and argon atmosphere. These PLD grown ZnO thin films have the potential to be used as sources of UV radiation in light emitting devices.