Study of ZnO ceramic targets used in laser molecular beam epitaxy technology

High quality crystalline zinc oxide thin films were grown on sapphire substrate with lower temperature by laser molecular beam epitaxy (L-MBE) and using a sintered ZnO ceramic as target. The ZnO ceramic targets with high purity of 99.99% were fabricated through the modified electronic ceramic process in cleaning laboratory. The target was ablated by KrF laser pulses in an ultra high vacuum to deposit ZnO thin film on the sapphire substrate. The target shows a polycrystal wurtzite structure while the ZnO thin film shows highly c-axis oriented wurtzite crystal structure by X-ray diffraction patterns. The sintering process of high purity of ZnO targets is determined by the O vacancy diffusion sintering mode. The pre- and postablated target surfaces were investigated by scanning electron microscope in sake of the plume formation accompanying pulsed ultraviolet laser ablation from which the ZnO thin film was deposited on the substrate by L-MBE technology.