Growth of a–b-axis orientation ZnO films with zinc vacancies by SSCVD

Zinc oxide (ZnO) films were grown on silicon (1 0 0) substrates by single-source chemical vapor deposition (SSCVD). X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed that ZnO thin films have a polycrystalline hexagonal wurtzite structure with (1 0 0) and (1 0 1) orientation, i.e., a–b-axis orientation. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) showed the films to be of relatively high density with a smooth surface. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed that the deposited films were very close to stoichiometry but contained a small number of zinc instead of O vacancies as normally found with ZnO films produced by other methods. These results were also confirmed by photoluminescence (PL) measurements.