Amorphous ultra-wide bandgap ZnOx thin films deposited at cryogenic temperatures

Crystalline wurtzite zinc oxide (w-ZnO) can be used as a wide bandgap semiconductor for light emitting devices and transparent or high temperature electronics. The use of amorphous zinc oxide (a-ZnO) can be an advantage in these applications. In this paper, we report on x-ray amorphous a-ZnOx thin films (∼500 nm) deposited at cryogenic temperatures by reactive magnetron sputtering. The substrates were cooled by a nitrogen flow through the copper substrate holder during the deposition. The films were characterized by x-ray diffraction, Raman, infrared, UV–Vis-near-infrared spectroscopies, and ellipsometry. The a-ZnOx films on glass and Ti substrates were obtained at the substrate holder temperature of approximately −100 °C. New vibration bands at 201, 372, and 473 cm−1 as well as O–H stretch and bend absorption bands in the a-ZnOx films were detected by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Raman spectra showed characteristic ZnO2 peaks at 386 and 858 cm−1 attributed to the peroxide ion O22− stretching and libration modes, respectively. In addition, the films contain neutral and ionized O2 and O2− species. The a-ZnOx films are highly transparent in the visible light range (≈87%) and exhibit a refractive index of 1.68 at 2.25 eV (550 nm). An optical bandgap is 4.65 eV with an additional band edge absorption feature at 3.50 eV. It has been shown that the deposition on actively cooled substrates can be a suitable technique to obtain low temperature phases that cannot be deposited at room temperature.