ZnO epitaxial layers with low-temperature (LT) ZnO buffer layers were grown on p-type Si (100) substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE). The buffer layers with the thickness of 500 Å were grown by two step growth. The first (350 Å) and second (150 Å) step of the buffer layer growth were without and with interrupts, respectively. The growth of the second step was interrupted for 10 s, after the deposition of 7.5Å, 5 Å, and 3.75 Å that were repeated 20, 30, and 40 times respectively, while the O₂ plasma was kept constant during the growth. The structural and the optical properties of the ZnO epitaxial layers have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL). The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the ZnO (002) diffraction peak was affected by the growth condition. The strain and the grain size were also changed. The PL intensity ratio of near-band-edge emission (NBEE) to deep level emission (DLE) of the ZnO epitaxial layers was enhanced with increasing the interrupt times. The FWHM of the NBEE and the DLE were decreased from 176 to 131 meV and from 868 to 573 meV, respectively. The DLE were blue shifted from 2.07 to 2.21 eV.

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1. Structural and optical properties of ZnO epitaxial layers grown on ZnO buffer layers with different interrupts by molecular beam epitaxy
2. Annealing effects of the initial Zn layers on properties of ZnO thin films grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy