Comparative study of ZnO thin film and nanopillar growth on YSZ(1Â 1Â 1) and sapphire (0Â 0Â 0Â 1) substrates by pulsed laser deposition

The growth of ZnO films by pulsed laser deposition was systematically studied on three different substrates, namely YSZ(1 1 1), Al2O3(0 0 0 1), and Si(1 0 0). The dependence of the film morphology on oxygen background pressure and substrate temperature was investigated. A strong dependence of the ZnO morphology on all three growth parameters was found allowing for tuning the microscopic structure of ZnO from contiguous film to a columnar growth, and to perfectly aligned nanopillars.