Effect of annealing on the spectral and nonlinear optical characteristics of thin films of nano-ZnO

The annealing effect on the spectral and nonlinear optical (NLO) characteristics of ZnO thin films deposited on quartz substrates by sol-gel process is investigated. As the annealing temperature increases from 300-1050 degrees C, there is a decrease in the band gap, which indicates the changes of the interface of ZnO. ZnO is reported to show two emission bands, an ultraviolet (UV) emission band and another in the green region. The intensity of the UV peak remains the same while the intensity of the visible peak increases with increase in annealing temperature. The role of oxygen in ZnO thin films during the annealing process is important to the change in optical properties. The mechanism of the luminescence suggests that UV luminescence of ZnO thin films is related to the transition from conduction band edge to valence band, and green luminescence is caused by the transition from deep donor level to valence band due to oxygen vacancies. The NLO response of these samples is studied using nanosecond laser pulses at off-resonance wavelengths. The nonlinear absorption coefficient increases from 2.9 x 10(-6) to 1.0 x 10(-4) m/W when the annealing temperature is increased from 300 to 1050 degrees C, mainly due to the enhancement of interfacial state and exciton oscillator strength. The third order optical susceptibility chi((3)) increases with increase in annealing temperature (T) within the range of our investigations. In the weak confinement regime, T-2.4 dependence of chi((3)) is obtained for ZnO thin films. The role of annealing temperature on the optical limiting response is also studied. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.