Formation of nano-crystalline Si quantum dots in ZnO thin-films using a ZnO/Si multilayer structure

Abstract

In this study, we propose to fabricate ZnO thin-films with nano-crystalline Si (nc-Si) quantum dots (QDs) embedded using a ZnO/Si multilayer structure by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method. Our results show that a high Si sputtering power (P-Si) can assist the formation of self-aggregated Si nano-clusters during deposition, which is helpful for the crystallization of nc-Si QDs and ZnO matrix during annealing. Great crystallinity and highly uniform size of nc-Si QDs are obtained for P-Si of 110 W. We experimentally demonstrate the formation of nc-Si QDs embedded in crystalline ZnO thin-films, which has a great potential for various electro-optical device applications. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.