Study of ZnO layers growth by pulsed laser deposition from Zn and ZnO targets

The article deals with structural properties of ZnO thin layers prepared on Si (111) by pulsed laser deposition at different pressures (1-35 Pa) of ambient oxygen in the deposition chamber. The growth temperature was 400 °C and a pulsed Nd:YAG laser was used at a wavelength of 355 nm. Two parallel sets of samples deposited by ablation of different targets (a sintered ceramic pellet of ZnO and a pure metallic Zn target) were examined. The samples were characterized by different analytical methods: scanning electron microscope (SEM), secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The prepared layers exhibited columnar structure and uniform preferred c-axis orientation. The results showed that deposition of the high quality of ZnO films fabricated from both targets is comparable, except for those obtained at low (1 Pa) pressures.