Optical Properties of ZnO-Alloyed Nanocrystalline Films

ZnO is emerging as one of the materials of choice for UV applications. It has a deep excitonic energy level and a direct bandgap of ~3.4 eV. Alloying ZnO with certain atomic constituents adds new optical and electronic functionalities to ZnO. This paper presents research on MgZn？O and ZnS？O nanocrystalline flexible films, which enable tunable optical properties in the deep-UV and in the visible range. The ZnO and Mg0.3Zn0.7O films were found to have bandgaps at 3.35 and 4.02 eV, respectively. The photoluminescence of the Mg0.3Zn0.7O exhibited a bandedge emission at 3.95 eV, and at lower energy 3.38 eV due to the limited solubility inherent to these alloys. ZnS0.76O0.24 and ZnS0.16O0.84 were found to have bandgaps at 3.21 and 2.65 eV, respectively. The effect of nitrogen doping on ZnS0.16O0.84 is discussed in terms of the highly lattice mismatched nature of these alloys and the resulting valence-band modification.