Effect of annealing temperature on the optical property of high Cd content CdZnO films

•The enhancement of emission after annealing was considerably attributed to the reduce of non-radiative recombination center.•The structure evolves of CdZnO films from single rs to involving w, zb, and rs phases with rise of annealing temperature.•High Cd contents (59%) CdZnO films have been deposited by RF magnetron sputtering.

CdZnO films with high Cd contents (59%) have been deposited on quartz substrate by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The as-deposited CdZnO films can hardly show detectable photoluminescence (PL). However, once subjected to suitable annealing temperature, the CdZnO films exhibit pronounced PL. Furthermore, when the annealing temperature at 300 °C and above, that the CdZnO are changed from the single phase of the rs structure to involving w, zb, and rs phases. Consequently, reliable formation and optical property improvement of the CdZnO layers are achieved through annealing temperature at 300 °C.