Abstract
Zinc Oxide (ZnO) thin films have been grown by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique on silicon wafers and corning7059glass substrates kept at different substrate temperatures. Diethylzinc (DEZ) was used as the source precursor for the preparation of ZnO films, H2O and argon were used as oxidizer and carrier gases respectively. Structural and optical properties of the films, grown with different gas flow ratio, were investigated using various characterization techniques. The as grown ZnO films at a substrate temperature of 300°C with DEZ/H2O flow rate ratio 1:4 at 50 W of R. F. power were found to be highly c-axis oriented with (002) preferred orientation. The elemental analysis of these films performed using X-ray photoelectron and Auger electron spectroscopy showed the presence of zinc and oxygen only. Atomic force microscope images of the films exhibited columnar grain growth. The films showed a transmittance (> 85%) in the 400-800 nm wavelength range. The optical band gap for film deposited at 300°C estimated using Tauc’s plot was found to be ∼3.28 eV. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2014.334]
