ZnO Thin Films Synthesized by Sol-Gel Process for Photonic Applications

L. Znaidia, T. Touamb, D. Vrela, N. Soudeda, S. Ben Yahiaa, O. Brinzaa, A. Fischerb and A. Boudriouab aLaboratoire des Sciences des Procédés et des Matériaux, CNRS/UPR 3407, Université Paris 13, 99 Av. J.-B. Clément, 93430 Villetaneuse, France bLaboratoire de Physique des Lasers, CNRS/UMR 7538, Université Paris 13, 99 Av. J.-B. Clément, 93430 Villetaneuse, France

Full Text PDF

Undoped and aluminum-doped ZnO thin films are prepared by the sol-gel process. Zinc acetate dihydrate, ethanol and monoethanolamine are used as precursor, solvent and stabilizer, respectively. In the case of Al-doped ZnO, aluminum nitrate nonahydrate is added to the precursor solution with an atomic percentage equal to 1 or 2 at.% Al. The multi thin layers are prepared by spin-coating onto glass substrates, and are transformed into ZnO upon annealing at 550°C. Films with preferential orientation along the c-axis are successfully obtained. The structural, morphological, and optical properties of the thin films as a function of aluminum content have been investigated for different elaboration parameters (e.g. layer number) using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, scanning electronic microscopy. Waveguiding properties of the thin films have been also studied using m-lines spectroscopy. The results indicate that our films are monomodes at 632.8 nm with propagation optical loss estimated around 1.6 dB/cm.

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.121.165 PACS numbers: 81.20.Fw, 61.46.-w, 78.20.-e