Raman studies of ZnO:Co thin films

In this paper we investigate cobalt doped ZnO thin films prepared via different sol–gel methods. XRD shows only the diffraction peaks from wurtzite ZnO without secondary phase, as widely reported in literature, for the Co contents of our samples of 3 to 12%. Raman spectroscopy reveals the existence of antiferromagnetic cobalt oxides like CoO and Co3O4 already in intermediately doped samples. Furthermore, the Raman shifts of the doped samples exhibit a shift to higher energy with increasing Co doping content. Unfortunately, Raman spectroscopy is not sensitive to metallic Co and, therefore, cannot be employed to explore the presence of Co clusters. However, we demonstrate that XRD is not a suitable method to rule out the existence of magnetic secondary phases in ZnO doped with transition metals. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)