Preparation and characterization of ZnO thin films prepared by thermal oxidation of evaporated Zn thin films

In this paper, the experimental results regarding some structural, electrical and optical properties of ZnO thin films prepared by thermal oxidation of metallic Zn thin films are presented.Zn thin films (d=200–400 nm) were deposited by thermal evaporation under vacuum, onto unheated glass substrates, using the quasi-closed volume technique. In order to obtain ZnO films, zinc-coated glass substrates were isochronally heated in air in the 300–660 K temperature range, for thermal oxidation.X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies revealed that the ZnO films obtained present a randomly oriented hexagonal nanocrystalline structure. Depending on the heating temperature of the Zn films, the optical transmittance of the ZnO films in the visible wavelength range varied from 85% to 95%. The optical band gap of the ZnO films was found to be about 3.2 eV. By in situ studying of the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity during the oxidation process, the value of about 2×10−2 Ω−1 m−1 was found for the conductivity of completely oxidized ZnO films.