Metallorganic chemical vapor deposition of ZnO films on carbonized Si(111) and Si(100) substrates

ZnO films were grown on carbonized Si(111) and Si(100) substrates by metallorganic chemical vapor deposition. The ZnO film grown on the carbonized Si(111) substrate has much narrower full width at half maximum of the X-ray rocking curve and almost one order higher intensity in the photoluminescence emission than that directly grown on the Si substrate and the carbonized Si(100) substrate. According to the characterization of the two kinds of carbonized Si substrates and the epitaxial models, the improvement of the ZnO film grown on the carbonized Si(111) substrate was attributed to the reduced lattice mismatch by placing a (111)-oriented 3C-SiC buffer layer. In contrast, ZnO film grown on the carbonized Si(100) substrate exhibited an increased lattice mismatch by placing a (100)-oriented 3C-SiC buffer layer. This resulted in the poor quality of the ZnO overgrown layer. Moreover, using optimized growth conditions, a hiah-quality ZnO film was prepared on the carbonized Si(111) substrate.