Optical property of hexagonal nanocrystalline zno film on Si substrate prepared by plasma-enhanced CVD

In this paper, a two-step low-temperature growth method is reported for the fabrication of ZnO film. Hexagonal nanocrystalline ZnO film has been grown on a Si(1 0 0) substrate by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) at a comparatively low temperature of 150 °C. The X-ray pattern shows that the film has a c-axis preferential orientation in the (0 0 0 2) crystal direction. SEM image indicates the film with a thickness of 300 nm consists of nanocrystallites with hexagonal cross-section, and the diameters of the nanocrystallites range from 100 to 120 nm.Room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectrum exhibits a strong ultraviolet emission and the defect-related emission is negligibly weak. Possible reasons for low-temperature growth of high-quality Si-based ZnO film are discussed.