Origin of Ultraviolet Luminescence from Bulk ZnO Thin Films Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Origin of ultraviolet (UV) luminescence from bulk ZnO has been investigated with the help of photoluminescence (PL) measurements. Thin films of ZnO having 52%, 53% and 54% of Zn-contents were prepared by means of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). We observed a dominant UV line at 3.28 eV and a visible line centered at 2.5 eV in the PL spectrum performed at room temperature. The intensity of UV line has been found to depend upon the Zn percentage in the ZnO layers. Thereby, we correlate the UV line in our samples with the Zn-interstitials-bound exciton (Zni-X) recombination. The results obtained from, x-ray diffraction, the energy dispersive X-ray spectrum (EDAX) and Raman spectroscopy supported the PL results.