Preparation of Zinc Oxide Thin Films by Reactive Pulsed Arc Molecular Beam Deposition

Abstract

The structures and properties of ZnO thin films deposited on Si (111), Corning 2947 glass and polyimide substrates by pulsed arc molecular beam deposition (PAMBD) have been studied. PAMBD is an ablation technique that utilizes a high-voltage pulsed electrical arc discharge to provide a plasma source for oxide generation and subsequent material deposition. Metal oxide generation is accomplished by pulsing oxygen gas and using the arc discharge to create a high-temperature plasma. The resulting metal oxide product is expanded and deposited onto a room-temperature substrate situated within a vacuum chamber. In this work, ZnO thin films were grown by the PAMBD method and then characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction, and ellipsometry measurements to determine the film composition, structure, growth rate, and optical properties. SEM studies of ZnO films on different substrates all demonstrated that the PAMBD ZnO films were dense and have columnar structures. XPS revealed a highly stoichiometrical Zn and O (1:1) film composition representing chemically pure films. By observing ZnO thin films deposited on various substrates, we readily see the advantages of low-temperature thin film deposition due to the rapid cooling of the metal oxide product by the molecular beam supersonic expansion. This indicates that the PAMBD process is especially suitable for deposition of these materials upon temperaturesensitive substrates.

Growth of ZnO Nanostructures Produced by MOCVD: A Study of the Effect of the Substrate

“…Shape and BE value associated with present Zn features are in agreement with earlier reported data. [32][33][34] The shape of the O1s feature (Fig. 6b) can be assigned to two different oxygen contributions, since two peaks are sufficient to achieve a good fit for the spectrum.…”

“…The peak visible at the lowest BE value (530.2 eV) can be associated with the Zn-O bonding of the oxide phase, [35] while the second peak at the higher binding energies (532.2 eV) can be associated with surface hydroxyl groups. [34,[36][37][38] The relative atomic con- ( Fig. 7).…”

Sparked ZnO nanoparticles-based electrochemical sensor for onsite determination of glyphosate residues

“…Moreover, ZnO nanostructures can be classified into different types of dimensions from 0D to 3D leading to different applications such as photocatalytic activity, solar cells, anti-bacterial activities, supercapacitors, and chemical and biological sensors [19][20][21]. The ZnO has been synthesized in various methods including hydrothermal synthesis [22], electrochemical deposition [23], chemical vapor deposition [24,25], spray pyrolysis [26], radio-frequency magnetron sputtering [27], molecular beam epitaxy [28], pulsed laser deposition [29], arc discharge method [30], and sparking method [31].…”

Preparation of Polyimide/Zinc Oxide Nanocomposite Films via an Ion-Exchange Technique and Their Photoluminescence Properties

“…Combining ZnO nanoparticles with a polymer should enhance their optical properties such as fluorescence, transparence and radiation durability. The polymer/ZnO composites have been produced with many different matrices such as poly (vinylpyrrolidone) [6], poly(methyl methacrylate) [7], poly (hydroxyethyl methacrylate) [8], poly (ethylene glycol) [9], low density polyethylene [10], poly(ethylene oxide) [11], Nylone-6 [12], polyurethane [13], and polyimide (PI) [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Among the various polymers, PI is a promising matrix which has attracted a lot of interest for photonic applications because of its conjugate π-electron system.…”