Influence of annealing temperature on the structural and optical properties of highly-oriented Al and Er co-doped ZnO films

High-quality c-axis oriented 7 mol% Al and 1.5 mol% Er co-doped ZnO films (ZEAO) were prepared on the quartz glass substrates by using sol–gel method. The influence of the annealing temperature on the crystal orientation, microstructure and optical properties of the ZEAO thin films were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and UV–vis transmittance spectrophotometer, respectively. XRD results revealed that all the samples were polycrystalline with hexagonal structure and exhibited (002) preferential orientation. With increasing the annealing temperature, the grain size and orientation extent increased. The optical studies showed each ZEAO film had a relatively high transmittance above 85 %. The transmittance as high as 95 % was obtained at the annealing temperature of 800 °C, and the corresponding average grain size was about 50 nm. The cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra of these films were also used to characterize the luminescence properties. Strong UV emission centered at 380 nm was observed in the CL spectra taken for the pure ZnO. For the ZEAO sample, the blue-green emission is related to the 4f shell transition in the Er3+ ions of ZnO matrices, corresponding to a transition from the excited states (4F5/2).