The effects of porous silicon on the crystalline properties of ZnO thin films

In the present work, ZnO was deposited on porous silicon substrates by sol-gel spin coating and rf magnetron sputtering. The porous silicon (PS) substrates were formed by electrochemical anodization on p-type (1 0 0) silicon wafer, and the starting material for ZnO was Zinc acetate dehydrate. Raman spectroscopy revealed the good quality of the porous silicon substrate. XRD analysis showed that highly (0 0 2) oriented ZnO thin films were formed. SEM, AFM and optical microscope have been used to understand the effects of the substrate on crystalline properties of the samples. The results indicated that the porous silicon substrate is beneficial to improve the crystalline quality in lattice mismatch heteroepitaxy due to its sponge-like structure.