ZnO nanostructured film deposition using the separated pulsed laser deposition (SPLD) assisted by electric and magnetic drift motion

We have developed the separated pulsed laser deposition (SPLD) technique to prepare high quality ZnO based films exhibiting uniform and droplet-free properties. This SPLD consists of an ablation chamber and a deposition chamber which can be independently evacuated under different ambient gases.The gas species and the pressures in both chambers can be arbitrarily chosen for the specific deposition such as nanostructured films and nanoparticles. The ablation chamber is a stainless steel globe and the deposition chamber is a quartz tube connected to a metallic conic wall with an orifice. We used a KrF excimer laser with λ = 248 nm and 25 ns pulse duration. The different gas conditions in two chambers allow us to realize optimal control of the plasma plume, the gas phase reaction and the film growth by applying the bias voltage between the conic wall and the substrate under the magnetic field. We can expect that at appropriate pressures the electric and magnetic field motion (E × B azimuthal drift velocity) gives significant influences on film growth.We have deposited ZnO thin films at various pressures of ablation chamber (Pab) and deposition chamber (Pd). The deposition conditions used here were laser fluence of 3 J/cm², laser shot number of 30,000, Pab of 0.67-2.67 Pa (O₂ or Ar), Pd of 0.399-2.67 Pa (O₂), and substrate temperature of 400 °C. Particle-free and uniform ZnO films were obtained at Pab of 0.67 Pa (Ar) and Pd of 1.33 Pa (O₂). The ZnO film showed high preferential orientation of (002) plane, optical band gap of 2.7 eV, grain size of 42 nm and surface roughness of 1.2 nm.