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Study on pulsed laser ablation and deposition of ZnO thin films by L-MBE

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Abstract

ZnO, as a wide-band gap semiconductor, has recently become a new research focus in the field of ultraviolet optoelectronic semiconductors. Laser molecular beam epitaxy (L-MBE) is quite useful for the unit cell layer-by-layer epitaxial growth of zinc oxide thin films from the sintered ceramic target. The ZnO ceramic target with high purity was ablated by KrF laser pulses in an ultra high vacuum to deposit ZnO thin film during the process of L-MBE. It is found that the deposition rate of ZnO thin film by L-MBE is much lower than that by conventional pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Based on the experimental phenomena in the ZnO thin film growth process and the thermal-controlling mechanism of the nanosecond (ns) pulsed laser ablation of ZnO ceramic target, the suggested effective ablating time during the pulse duration can explain the very low deposition rate of the ZnO film by L-MBE. The unique dynamic mechanism for growing ZnO thin film is analyzed. Both the high energy of the deposition species and the low growth rate of the film are really beneficial for the L-MBE growth of the ZnO thin film with high crystallinity at low temperature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Science and Technology, School of Electronic & Information Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    He YongNing, Zhang JingWen, Zhu ChangChun & Hou Xun

  2. State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics Technology, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Xi’an, 710068, China

    Yang XiaoDong, Xu QingAn & Hou Xun

Authors
  1. He YongNing
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  2. Zhang JingWen
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  3. Yang XiaoDong
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  4. Xu QingAn
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  5. Zhu ChangChun
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  6. Hou Xun
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Correspondence to He YongNing.

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Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Xi’an Jiaotong University

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He, Y., Zhang, J., Yang, X. et al. Study on pulsed laser ablation and deposition of ZnO thin films by L-MBE. SCI CHINA SER E 50, 290–301 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-007-0035-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-007-0035-z

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