Effects of the ambience gas of the buffer layers on the microstructural and optical properties of ZnO films grown on si substrates

The effects of the gas ambience and the in-situ thermal annealing of ZnO buffer layers on the structural and optical properties of ZnO films subsequently grown by magnetron sputtering have been investigated. It was shown that the introduction of buffer layers grown in gas ambiences of mixed Ar/O ₂ and the in-situ thermal treatment of the ZnO buffer layers improved the structural and optical properties. In addition, ZnO films on buffer layer thermal-annealed in N ₂ gas ambience exhibited strong emission of the near band gap exciton with narrow linewidth on combining high-temperature growth of the ZnO.