Piezoelectric zinc oxide by electrostatic spray pyrolysis

Zinc oxide (ZnO) possesses many interesting properties, such as a wide energy band gap, large photoconductivity, and high excitonic binding energy. Piezoelectric (ZnO) film has a high electro-mechanical coupling coefficient, which makes it a promising material for high frequency and low surface acoustic wave (SAW), bulk acoustic wave, and microelectromechanical system devices. In this work, we present the first results obtained for piezoelectric ZnO thin films prepared on corning 7059 glass substrate by electrostatic spray pyrolysis (ESP), a simple, cheap and efficient technique not widely used for ZnO deposition, using zinc nitrate in a mixture of deionised water and isopropyl alcohol. The structural morphologic and optical properties of the films have been studied and the effect of the preparation conditions, such as substrate temperature and substrate-nozzle distance, discussed. Highly c-axis preferred orientation, which is critical for piezoelectric applications (ultrasonic oscillators and transducers devices), ZnO thin films are obtained at 350 degrees C growth temperature and at 4.5 cm substrate-nozzle distance. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.