Deposition of zinc oxide thin films by reactive pulsed laser ablation

Thin films of zinc oxide have been deposited by reactive pulsed laser ablation of Zn and ZnO targets in presence of a radio frequency (RF) generated oxygen plasma. The gaseous species have been deposited at several substrate temperatures, using the on-axis configuration, on Si (1 0 0). Thin films have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy. A comparison among conventional PLD and reactive RF plasma-assisted PLD has been performed.