Influence of Substrate Temperature on Stress and Morphology Characteristics of Co Doped ZnO Films Prepared by Laser-Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Zn1–xCoxO (x = 0.05) thin films are deposited on sapphire (0001) substrates by laser-molecular beam epitaxy technique at different substrate temperatures. The structural, stress and morphology evolution features are investigated by means of X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. The surface parameters of roughness exponent α, root mean square (RMS) roughness w and autocorrelation length ξ are calculated and the surface parameters are preliminarily analyzed. The values of α vary from 0.7 to 0.9. The RMS roughness w is less than 2.2 nm, and it increases with increasing Ts from 300 to 400 °C, and then decreases when Ts is 500 °C. The autocorrelation length ξ decreases monotonously with the increase in Ts from 300 to 500 °C, which indicates that the increase in Ts restrains the spread of the surface fluctuations until Ts is higher than 400 °C.