Homoepitaxial ZnO Film Growth

ZnO films have high potential for many applications, such as surface acoustic wave filters, UV detectors, and light emitting devices due to its structural, electrical, and optical properties. High quality epitaxial films are required for these applications. The Al2O3 substrate is commonly used for ZnO heteroepitaxial growth. Recently, high quality ZnO single crystals are available for grow homoepitaxial films. Epitaxial ZnO films were grown on the two polar surfaces (O-face and Zn-face) of (0001) ZnO single crystal substrates using off-axis magnetron sputtering deposition. As a comparison, films were also deposited on (0001) Al2O3 substrates. It was found that the two polar ZnO surfaces have different photoluminescence (PL) spectrum, surface structure and morphology, which strongly influence the epitaxial film growth. The morphology and structure of homoepitaxial films grown on the ZnO substrates were different from heteroepitaxial films grown on the Al2O3. An interesting result shows that high temperature annealing of ZnO single crystals will improve the surface structure on the O-face surface rather than the opposite surface. The measurements of PL, low-angle incident x-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy of ZnO films indicate that the O-terminated surface is better for ZnO epitaxial film growth.