Semiconductor layer thickness impact on optical and resistive switching behavior of pulsed laser deposited BaTiO3/ZnO heterostructures

This work reports the impact of ZnO layer thickness on optical and resistive switching behavior of BaTiO3/ZnO heterostructures grown by pulsed laser deposition. The interface polarization coupling becomes more efficient and causes a remarkable change in heterostructure properties with decrease in ZnO layer thickness. The heterostructure with ZnO thickness of 25 nm displays the enhanced resistive switching characteristics with switching ratio approximate to 10(6) and good stability in low and high resistance states. Moreover, the photoluminescence spectrum exhibits two additional blue emissions when ZnO thickness is <= 50nm and their mechanism is highlighted based on interface band offset and interface polarization coupling effect. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.