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Luminescence mechanism of ZnO thin film investigated by XPS measurement

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Abstract

The effects of annealing environment on the luminescence characteristics of ZnO thin films that were deposited on SiO2/Si substrates by reactive RF magnetron sputtering were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence (PL). An analysis of the O 1s peak of ZnO film revealed that the concentration of oxygen vacancies increased with the annealing temperature from 600 °C to 900 °C under an ambient atmosphere. The PL results demonstrated that the intensity of green light emission at 523 nm also increased with temperature. Under various annealing atmospheres, the analyses of PL indicated that only one emission peak (523 nm) was obtained, indicating that only one class of defect was responsible for the green luminescence. The green light emission was strongest and the concentration of oxygen vacancies was highest when the ZnO film was annealed in ambient atmosphere at 900 °C. The results in this investigation show that the luminescence mechanism of the emission of green light from a ZnO thin film is associated primarily with oxygen vacancies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C.

    P.-T. Hsieh & Y.-C. Chen

  2. Department of Computer and Communication, Shu-Te University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C.

    K.-S. Kao

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, Cheng Shiu University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C.

    C.-M. Wang

Authors
  1. P.-T. Hsieh
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  2. Y.-C. Chen
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  3. K.-S. Kao
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  4. C.-M. Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Y.-C. Chen.

Additional information

PACS

81.15.Cd; 81.40.Ef; 78.55.-m; 78.55.Et

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Hsieh, PT., Chen, YC., Kao, KS. et al. Luminescence mechanism of ZnO thin film investigated by XPS measurement. Appl. Phys. A 90, 317–321 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-007-4275-3

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