Magnetic and optical properties of ZnO/Ni/ZnO multilayer film on Si(100) and sapphire substrates

The optical absorption, band gap, and magnetic properties of ZnO/Ni(t)/ZnO multilayer film structures were investigated in various Ni layer thicknesses and substrates. We deposited 1, 4, and 5 nm of Ni film by thermal evaporation technique that sandwiched between ZnO films (similar to 15 nm) via radio frequency magnetron sputtering method on both Si(100) and sapphire substrates. Although x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed the (002) crystalline plane of ZnO without any Ni crystal phases on Si(100) surface, the better crystalline directions of ZnO, hexagonal wurtzite structure, was observed on the sapphire substrate. In the XRD analysis, we observed the cubic structure of NiO film formation due to thermally oxidation of Ni ions with interactions ZnO layer. Atomic force microscopy images confirmed the effect of the Ni layer on the average island size of 23.9 +/- 2.9 nm and 25.6 +/- 6.2 of ZnO films on 4 and 5 nm Ni films, respectively. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy data confirmed that there is no other atom or impurity in the sample structure. The optical transparency of the multilayer films was reduced with increasing Ni layer thickness and maximum transparency was obtained as 97% at 800 nm of wavelength for the film with 1 nm Ni. The direct optical band gap of ZnO/Ni(t)/ZnO films was found to be 3.25, 3.20, and 3.12 eV with the contribution of 1, 4, and 5 nm Ni film in the multilayer film stack. The maximum H-c is found to be 1000 Oe for Si substrates and this value is reduced to around 400 Oe due to the crystal formation of the NiO layer for sapphire substrate samples.