Study of ultraviolet emission spectra in ZnO thin films

Abstract

Photoluminescence (PL) of ZnO thin films prepared on c-Al2O 3 substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) are investigated. For all samples, roomtemperature (RT) spectra show a strong band-edge ultraviolet (UV) emission with a pronounced low-energy band tail. The origin of this UV emission is analyzed by the temperature dependence of PL spectra. The result shows that the UV emission at RT contains different recombination processes. At low temperature donor-bound exciton (D0X) emission plays a major role in PL spectra, while the free exciton transition (FX) gradually dominates the spectrum with increasing temperatures. It notes that at low temperature an emission band (FA) appears in low energy side of D0X and FX and can survive up to RT. Further confirmation shows that the origin of the band FA can be attributed to the transitions of conduction band electrons to acceptors (e, A0), in which the acceptor binding energy is estimated to be approximately 121 meV. It is concluded that at room temperature UV emission originates from the corporate contributions of the free exciton and free electrons-to-acceptor transitions. © 2013 Y. M. Lu et al.