Morphology evolution and photoluminescence properties of ZnO films electrochemically deposited on conductive glass substrates

The current-dependent morphology evolution and photoluminescence properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) films prepared by electrochemical deposition (ECD) method were studied in this paper. It has been shown that the morphologies of ZnO films vary from porous to dense structure, from pillar crystal array to two-dimensional nanosheet covered film, with increase of deposition currents. Correspondingly, orientation of the film evolves from randomly to highly c-axis oriented structure. Current dependence of morphology is attributed to the ECD current-controlled preferential growth velocity along the c axis. All the ZnO films prepared over a wide current range show strong ultraviolet (UV) emission at room temperature, which also shows deposition current dependence in intensity, together with relatively weak defect-related green emission under UV excitations. Further experiments have revealed that a nonradiative relax process and a radiative electron-hole combination process are involved in this defect-related green emission and the excitonic origin of UV emission was also proved.