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Controlled growth of ZnO layers and nanowires using methane as reducing precursor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2017

Florian Huber ,
Anouk Puchinger ,
Waleed Ahmad ,
Manfred Madel ,
Sebastian Bauer  and
Klaus Thonke
Florian Huber*
Affiliation:
Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
Anouk Puchinger
Affiliation:
Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
Waleed Ahmad
Affiliation:
Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
Manfred Madel
Affiliation:
Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
Sebastian Bauer
Affiliation:
Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
Klaus Thonke
Affiliation:
Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, Ulm University, Ulm 89081, Germany
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) layers and nanowires were grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using methane (CH4) as reducing agent. Compared to conventional CVD processes, which commonly use graphite powder to reduce the ZnO powder source material, this low-cost method allows an improved controllability of the growth processes. Specifically, the consumption of the source material–a commercially available ZnO powder–can be controlled in a very precise way by varying the flow of the reducing CH4 or the re-oxidizing O2. Using this parameter, the growth can be switched between ZnO layers and nanostructures. High-quality ZnO layers have been grown on gallium nitride (GaN) substrates and on c-plane sapphire with an intermediate aluminum nitride (AlN) nucleation layer. By adjusting the growth conditions accordingly, ZnO nanowires were also grown with this method catalyst-free using a- and c-plane sapphire with ZnO nucleation layer as a substrate. The optical properties of the nanowires were investigated by low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) and compared to samples grown by conventional carbo-thermal CVD.

Keywords

chemical vapor deposition (CVD)methaneII–VI
Type
Invited Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 32 , Issue 21: Focus Issue: Jan van der Merwe: Epitaxy and the Computer Age , 14 November 2017 , pp. 4087 - 4094
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Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2017 

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Footnotes

Contributing Editor: Artur Braun

References

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