Characterization of biaxial stress and its effect on optical properties of ZnO thin films

Biaxial stress of ZnO film deposited on quartz was measured by side-inclination x-ray diffraction technique, indicating that the film is subjected to a tensile stress. One part of the stress is induced by thermal mismatch between the ZnO and the quartz and increases with annealing temperature, while another part results from lattice mismatch and is about 1.03 GPa. The optical band gap of the ZnO film shows a blueshift with increasing biaxial tensile stress, opposed to the change of the band gap with biaxial tensile stress for GaN. The mechanism of the stress-dependent band gap is suggested in the present work. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.