II-VI compound thin-film deposition by resonant laser sputtering

Abstract

Time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence measurements indicate that Zn atoms excited to the 4 3PJ metastable state react rapidly with group-VI molecules O2, CS2, and H2S. Rate constants for these processes are presented. Based on these data, a method for deposition of thin films of the ZnO or ZnS products of these reactions is demonstrated, wherein the Zn atoms are both sputtered from a target and excited to the 4 3PJ state by near-resonant radiation from a pulsed XeCl laser.

Experimental Investigations on the Crystallization of Zinc by Direct Irradiation of Zinc Oxide in a Solar Furnace

“…In the solar furnace, the irradiation of ZnO pellets leads to the formation of gaseous zinc and oxygen. From literature it is known that gaseous ZnO only exists as highly activated species with an extremely short lifetime. , Thus, under the given experimental conditions, the existence of gaseous ZnO can be excluded. During the actual experiments, zinc vapor and oxygen evolving from the ZnO pellet are diluted by the argon flow until phase transitions occur, either through the condensation and/or desublimation of zinc or through the formation of solid zinc oxide by reoxidation processes.…”

Electrodeposition of Thin Films for Low-cost Solar Cells

“…In most of the cases, their heterojunctions with a wide band gap emitter layer are exploited in the solar cells as their band gap can be tuned to a desired level by varying the compositions [7][8][9]. Because of the stoichiometry and stability of these materials are a primary concern to fabricate a successful junction [10,11], they are usually grown by highly controlled vacuum environments, such as the vacuum evaporation [12,13], chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [14][15][16][17], molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [18], or sputtering [19][20][21] techniques. Besides the high energy requirement for the above film processing, emission of gaseous waste materials is another serious issue with these techniques [22,23].…”

Epitaxial Growth of ZnO Films on ZnO-Buffered Al2O3 (0001) in Water at 95°C

“…For advanced applications of ZnO, single crystals in the form of thin films and a high degree of purity are required. Several groups 3–18 have pursued growth of ZnO films, and the progress in improving quality and purity is significant. Having high‐quality single crystalline ZnO films is especially important for optoelectronic devices in which the performance is highly sensitive to the crystalline quality of the films.…”

“…To date, various deposition methods including pulsed laser deposition, 3,4 chemical vapor deposition (CVD), 13 metal–organic CVD, 5,6 molecular‐beam epitaxy, 7–10 hydrothermal, 14,15 and sputtering 16 have been attempted to grow epitaxial ZnO films. Among them, the hydrothermal method seems one of the most attractive candidates for industrial use because rapid, low‐cost techniques are usually required in industry.…”