Effects of background gases and pressure in pulsed laser deposition of Al-doped ZnO

摘要： Background gases (O2, He or Ar) with the pressure from ~ 10?3 Pa to 133.3 Pa are used in 355 nm laser deposition of Al-doped ZnO at room temperature. The effects of these gases and pressure on plasma formation are studied by optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and time of flight (TOF) measurement. The OES results show that the emission intensity of the species in O2 and Ar decrease slightly and then increase exponentially above ~ 5 Pa. The emission intensity in Ar is the highest, followed by emission in O2 whilst the emission in He is low and weakly depend on background gas pressure. TOF measurements indicate that the ion velocity decrease with increasing O2 and Ar pressure at about 5–10 Pa. The ion velocity is highest in He while the ion velocities in O2 and Ar are similar. Thin-film samples deposited in different gas at 2.6 Pa are amorphous, but those deposited at 133.3 Pa are crystalline and exhibit different morphologies and optical properties depending on type of gas. Samples deposited in O2 are highly transparent but those deposited in He and Ar contain nano and micron-sized structures with <50% transmittance. In addition, Zn crystallites are detected by X-ray diffraction.