Tailoring energy bandgap of Al doped ZnO thin films grown by vacuum thermal evaporation method

Abstract

The paper presents the results of our experimental investigation pertaining to tailoring of energy bandgap and other associated characteristics of undoped and Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin film by varying the atomic concentration of Al in ZnO. Thin films of ZnO and ZnO doped with Al (1, 3, and 5 atomic percent (at.%)) were deposited on silicon substrate for structural characterization and on glass substrate for optical characterization. The dependence of structural and optical properties of Al doped ZnO on the atomic concentration of Al added to ZnO has been reported. On the basis of the experimental results an empirical formula has been proposed to calculate the energy bandgap of AZO theoretically in the range of 1 to 5 at.% of Al. The study revealed that AZO films are composed of smaller and larger number of grains as compared to pure ZnO counterpart and density of the grains was found to increase as the Al concentration increased (from 1 to 5 at.%). The transmittance in the visible region was greater than 90% and found to increase with increasing Al concentration up to 5 at.%. The optical bandgap was found to increase initially with increase in atomic concentration of Al concentration up to 3 at.% and decrease thereafter with increasing concentration of Al. Copyright © 2015 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.