Influence of annealing duration on optical property and surface morphology of ZnO thin film grown by atomic layer deposition

ZnO thin films were grown on p-Si (1 0 0) substrate by remote plasma atomic layer deposition (ALD) at 150 °C. Post-growth annealing was carried out on the ZnO thin films at 800 °C in N2 ambient for different annealing duration. The optical property and surface morphology of annealed samples are improved significantly compared with as-grown ZnO thin film. In particularly, the ZnO thin film that annealed for 10 min has shown a great enhancement in near-band-edge emission in photoluminescence. The effect of the annealing treatment on the optical property and surface morphology of ZnO thin films were investigated by photoluminescence, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.