Effect of praseodymium incorporation on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films by RF magnetron sputtering

In order to study the effect of praseodymium doping, thin films of ZnO and praseodymium doped ZnO (1, 3 and 5 wt %) were prepared by RF Magnetron Sputtering and the structural and optical properties are investigated by X-ray diffraction, SEM, atomic force microscopy, UV-Visible spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. All the films posses a hexagonal Wurtzite crystal structure with preferred orientation along (002) direction. The SEM images of the doped films show a porous structure for the films. From the PL spectra all the films shows emission in the UV and visible region. The UV emission of the near band edge is due to free exciton recombination and the other is the deep-level emission in the visible region. (author)