Study of zinc oxide epitaxial film growth and UV photodetectors

ZnO is a versatile material, and has been extensively studied for various applications such as varistors, transducers, transparent conducting electrodes, sensors, and catalysts. While polycrystalline ZnO is commonly used in these conventional applications, there has been a growing interest in obtaining single-crystalline ZnO films on various substrates. ZnO is a II-VI wide bandgap semiconductor with a relatively large exciton binding energy, and holds a potential for light emitting/detecting or nonlinear optical devices in the UV range. ZnO is isomorphic to wurtzite GaN with good lattice match, and therefore there has been a great deal of interest in using ZnO as a buffer layer or a substrate in growing high quality GaN films (or vice versa ZnO growth on GaN).; In this study, we have investigated epitaxial growth of ZnO films on sapphire and silicon substrates. High quality epitaxial ZnO films were grown on sapphire (0001) single crystal substrates using a rf magnetron sputtering technique. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the ZnO films are of a monocrystalline wurtzite structure with their epitaxial relationship of ZnO[0001]//sapphire[0001] along the growth direction and ZnO[112&barbelow;0]//sapphire[11&barbelow;00] along the in-plane direction. ZnO on Si also offers an interesting opportunity that the various functional properties of ZnO can be combined with the advanced Si electronics on the same substrate. Direct growth of epitaxial ZnO on Si, however, is known to be an extremely difficult task due to the oxidation problem during the nucleation stage of a ZnO growth process. We have overcome this problem by introducing an epitaxial GaN buffer layer, and have successfully grown epitaxial ZnO films on Si(111) substrates. X-ray diffraction analysis confirms an epitaxial relationship of ZnO[0001]//GaN[0001]//Si[111] along the growth direction and ZnO[112&barbelow;0]//GaN[112&barbelow;0]//Si[11&barbelow;0] along the in-plane direction.; As an application of the epitaxial ZnO films grown with sputtering, we have developed the UV photoconductors, and characterized the UV detection properties. Ultra-high responsivity (of 104 A/W order) was observed with strong dependence on the illumination power. The high responsivity suggests an enhanced carrier lifetime in the photoconductor structure, which is attributed to the preferential capture of holes at surface states and the subsequent separation of photogenerated carriers by the space charge region formed near the film surface. The power dependence of responsivity is explained using a model that was developed based on the concept of the space charge region modulation by the photogenerated carriers and the resulting change in the effective carrier lifetime.