Dielectric SiO2∕ZrO2 distributed Bragg reflectors for ZnO microcavities prepared by the reactive helicon-wave-excited-plasma sputtering method

Reactive helicon-wave-excited-plasma sputtering method is shown to be a suitable technique for the fabrication of high reflectivity (R) distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), in particular, operating at the resonance wavelength of B excitons in ZnO (366.5nm), utilizing quarter-wavelength multilayers of SiO2 and ZrO2 dielectric films. According to the surface-damage-free nature and proper stoichiometry controllability of the method, dense dielectric films exhibiting ideal refractive indices (1.46 for SiO2 and 2.10 for ZrO2 at 633nm) and small root-mean-square values for the surface roughness (0.20nm for SiO2 and 0.53nm for ZrO2) were deposited using Si and Zr targets and O2 gas at room temperature. Optical reflectance spectra of the SiO2∕ZrO2 DBRs agreed with those calculated using the optical multilayer film theory, and eight-pair DBR exhibited R higher than 99.5% at 366.5nm and 82nm stop bandwidth (R⩾95%). The results indicate that the DBR can be used for the realization of polariton lasers using ZnO microcavities.