Structure and morphology of atomic layer deposition grown ZnO thin film / nanostructure on polymeric template

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) was grown on polymer template, namely Poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. The detailed structural characterizations of the composite ZnO/PMMA film, through X-ray scattering techniques, indicate that on the PMMA template crystalline ZnO thin film was formed with its c-axis oriented along the surface normal. Combination of X-ray reflectivity (XRR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies demonstrate the formation of high quality ZnO thin film (about 25 nm thick) on PMMA template, with more than 92% coverage and low surface/interface roughness. AFM results clearly show that the ZnO film consists of almost uniform nanoparticles with ~24-30 nm in-plane size distribution, which is very much consistent with the observed size of the ZnO crystallites obtained from X-ray diffraction (XRD) study. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd.