Study of the effect of plasma power on ZnO thin films growth using electron cyclotron resonance plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy

ZnO thin films were grown on r-plane sapphire substrates using electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma-assistedmolecular-beam epitaxy. The effect of the oxygen ECR plasma power on the growth rate, structural, electrical, and optical properties of the ZnO thin films were studied. It was found that larger ECR power leads to higher growth rate, better crystallinity, lower electron carrier concentration, larger resistivity, and smaller density of non-radiative luminescence centers in the ZnO thin films. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 951 8277131; fax: +1 951 8272425. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.L. Liu).