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Comparative Study on Structural, Optical, and Electrical Properties of ZnO Thin Films Prepared by PLD and Sputtering Techniques

  • SURFACES, INTERFACES, AND THIN FILMS
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Abstract

ZnO thin films were formed on c-plane sapphire and p-GaN substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering techniques. XRD analysis including omega scan depicted the formation of highly textured wurtzite ZnO with c-axis. The texture was primarily introduced by the substrate effects as the planes lying at oblique angles also exhibited six-fold symmetry during phi scan. Atomic force microscopy exhibited the surface roughness of 4.33 and 12.99 nm for PLD and sputtered ZnO films, respectively. In photoluminescence (PL) measurements, a strong UV emission was observed at 3.30 eV for both ZnO films. However, deep-level emission was observed at around 2.61 eV in PLD film, but it had a wide range from 2.61 to 2.29 eV in case of sputter-deposited film. From the transmission spectra, the optical band gap values were found to be 3.29 and 3.28 eV for PLD and sputtered ZnO films, respectively. Hall measurement revealed the resistivity values of 0.0792 and 0.4832 Ω cm and carrier concentrations of 2.28 × 1018 and 1.73 × 1018 cm–3 for respective PLD and sputtered films. I(V) current–voltage curves clearly demonstrated the n-ZnO|p-GaN hetero-junction with turn-on voltage of 3.8 and 5.2 V for PLD and sputtered samples, respectively.

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Funding

Authors would like to thank Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan for providing financial support of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, 64200, Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan

    H. Naeem-ur-Rehman Khan & M. Mehmood

  2. Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 45650, Islamabad, Pakistan

    H. Naeem-ur-Rehman Khan & F. C. C. Ling

  3. Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China

    A. Faheem Khan

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Space Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan

    A. Faheem Khan

  5. UM Power Energy Dedicated Advanced Centre (UMPEDAC), Level 4, Wisma R&D UM, University of Malaya, Jalan Pantai Baharu, 59990, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    A. Faheem Khan

  6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    S. M. Ali

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  1. H. Naeem-ur-Rehman Khan
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Khan, H.NuR., Mehmood, M., Ling, F.C. et al. Comparative Study on Structural, Optical, and Electrical Properties of ZnO Thin Films Prepared by PLD and Sputtering Techniques. Semiconductors 54, 999–1010 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063782620090201

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