Studies on the surface and optical properties of Ta-doped ZnO thin films deposited by thermionic vacuum arc

In this research, Ta doped ZnO thin films have been deposited onto glass and Si substrates by Thermionic vacuum arc (TVA) thin film deposition system. TVA is an anodic plasma thin film deposition system and it is used to relatively high-quality thin films deposition. ZnO thin films have direct optical band gap of 3.37 eV. Tantalum is an efficient higher-valance element. Ta atom gives the more electrons compared to Zinc atom and their ionic radius are very close to each other, so substituted element does not bring into additional stress in crystal network. The deposited thin films were analyzed by field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, UV–Vis spectrophotometry and interferometer. To change the band gap properties of the ZnO thin film, Ta doping was used and band gap of Ta doped ZnO thin film was obtained 3.1 eV by Tauc’s method. The wt% ratios for Zn/Ta were calculated as 0.45 and 0.42 for the films deposited onto glass and Si substrates, respectively. Crystallite sizes of Ta doped ZnO thin film was decreased by changing substrate material. To the best of our knowledge, substituted Ta elements connected to the oxygen atom in crystal network and orthorhombic β′-Ta2O5 were detected in the all films structure. Their band gaps of the β′-Ta2O5 were measured as 2.70 eV and 2.60 eV for Ta-doped ZnO thin films deposited onto glass and Si substrates, respectively. Up to day, the band gap of the β′-Ta2O5 was calculated by density function theory. According to results, β′-Ta2O5 structure was found as embedded from in the ZnO crystal network.