Growth and characterization of ZnO nanostructures using pulsed laser

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and alumina-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films with different doping concentration have been deposed on glass substrate using pulsed laser deposition (PLD). A double frequency Q-switching Nd:YAG laser beam (λ = 532 nm, repetition rate 6 Hz and the pulse duration 10 ns) has been used for the deposition process at 100 C substrate temperature and 0.4 J/cm 2 laser fluense under 10-2 mbar O2 pressure. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopes (AFM) and UV-VIS Spectroscopy were used to investigate the samples. It has been found that film structure did not depend on substrate doping concentration. The grain size and RMS roughness increased with increasing doping concentration. The optical band gap of the films has been found to be 3.49 eV for pure ZnO films and 3.21 eV for 4 wt.% alumina doped ZnO films. © 2013 Optical Society of India.