Thermal annealing of ZnO substrates

Zinc oxide crystals were grown by Chemical Vapor Transport using Contactless Crystal Growth technique. After X-ray examination the 8∘ off-axis oriented slices were polished using alumina powder followed by a mixture of oxides. The mechanical polishing was followed by chemo-mechanical polishing using colloidal silica in water and supplemented by thermal annealing in an air atmosphere. The range of temperature was between 770 and 1070 ∘C, time of annealing ranged up to 160 h. The quality of surfaces was studied using atomic force microscopy. A wide spectrum of surface morphology was observed. The morphology was dependent on the annealing conditions and additionally on the quality of chemo-mechanical polishing and crystallographic orientation of the surfaces. It was found possible to obtain the lowest RMS surface roughness factor in extremely different annealing conditions. The best annealing procedure for surface improvement was investigated.