Structural, electrical, photoluminescence and optical properties of n–type conducting, phosphorus-doped ZnO thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

High-quality transparent conductive phosphorus-doped zinc oxide (PZO) thin films were fabricated on glass substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at different substrate temperatures. X-ray patterns indicated that (0 0 2) preferential growth was observed and P doping did not cause structural degradation of wurtzite ZnO. Hall effect results indicated that 350 °C was the optimum substrate temperature to get PZO thin films with the lowest resistivity (7.35 × 10−4 Ω cm). Photoluminescence spectra showed the UV luminescence peak resulting from the band-edge exciton transition observed for PZO thin films. UV–visible transmission spectra showed that PZO thin films had high transparence (about 85%). In addition, the influence of substrate temperature on bandgap shift in PZO thin films was systematically studied.