Login (DCU Staff Only)
Login (DCU Staff Only)

DORAS | DCU Research Repository

Explore open access research and scholarly works from DCU

Advanced Search

Pronounced effects of oxygen growth pressure on structure and properties of ZnO and AZO films laser deposited on Zeonor polymer

Inguva, Saikumar, McGlynn, Enda orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-3412-9035 and Mosnier, Jean-Paul orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-9312-1754 (2017) Pronounced effects of oxygen growth pressure on structure and properties of ZnO and AZO films laser deposited on Zeonor polymer. Thin Solid Films, 621 . pp. 171-177. ISSN 0040-6090

Abstract
We report the pronounced effects of oxygen growth pressure (0.13 Pa-40 Pa) on the surface morphology, hydrophobicity, structural, optical and electrical properties of ZnO and aluminium-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films deposited by room temperature pulsed-laser deposition on the low water-absorbing polymer Zeonor. Significant changes were observed for oxygen growth pressures below ~ 10 Pa. In this pressure range, the morphology changed from nanocrystalline to that of a continuous film with a shift of the growth orientation of the crystalline fraction of the deposit from c-plane to m-plane. The appearance of valley-shaped surface cracks caused a significant increase of rms surface roughness, reduced hydrophobicity and shift to hydrophilicity at 0.13 Pa. The visible optical transmittance of the film reduced from an average of 90 % to 65 % and the orange/red deep level emission was quenched. The electrical properties showed decreasing resistivities (105 Ω cm to 10-3 Ω cm) and Hall mobilities (35 cm2/V-s to 3 cm2/V-s) and increasing carrier concentrations (1011 cm-3 to 1021 cm-3). These significant changes of the films physical characteristics were related to the morphological and structural changes induced by the change of oxygen growth pressure. The observed effects are interesting for applications in flexible optoelectronics and briefly discussed in this context.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:ZnO and AZO; Thin films; Pulsed-laser deposition; Oxygen growth pressure; Room temperature deposition; Zeonor polymer; Flexible substrates; Flexible optoelectronics
Subjects:Physical Sciences > Thin films
Engineering > Materials
Physical Sciences > Spectrum analysis
Physical Sciences > Nanotechnology
Physical Sciences > Semiconductors
DCU Faculties and Centres:Research Initiatives and Centres > National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology (NCPST)
DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science and Health > School of Physical Sciences
Publisher:Elsevier
Official URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2016.12.001
Copyright Information:© 2017 Elservier
Use License:This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License
ID Code:21521
Deposited On:12 Dec 2016 14:17 by Enda Mcglynn . Last Modified 07 Oct 2021 12:15
Documents

Full text available as:

[thumbnail of Thin Solid Films, 621 (2017) 171–177]
Preview
PDF (Thin Solid Films, 621 (2017) 171–177) - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
2MB
Downloads

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Archive Staff Only: edit this record