Effects of high magnetic field assisted annealing on structure and optical, electric properties of electrodeposited ZnO films

Electrodeposited ZnO films have been annealed at 300 °C for 2 h under 12 T high magnetic field (HMF) with the directions of parallel and perpendicular to the films, respectively. The structural, optical and electric properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence (PL) spectra, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) and Seebeck coefficient/electrical resistance measuring system. The results show that HMF has a significant effect on the growth of ZnO films along c-axis and leads to hexagonal platelets of ZnO growing parallel to the direction of HMF. Furthermore, the hexagonal platelets become bulky platelets with an obvious trendy rotating their c-axis parallel to the substrate. The PL spectra of all the films exhibits the UV and blue emission, moreover, the blue emission plays the main role. The resistivity of ZnO films increases with the increase of measure temperature, which shows a typical degenerate semiconductor characteristic. HMF reduces significantly the intensity of whole emission peaks and the resistivity of ZnO films. These may be attribute to the significant changes of the structure and morphology of ZnO films, leading to various amounts of the defects in the ZnO crystal.