Biaxial strain effect in exciton resonance energies of epitaxial ZnO layers grown on 6H–SiC substrates

Abstract Thickness-dependent biaxial strain relaxation of epitaxial ZnO layers grown on 6H–SiC substrates has been addressed. The strain ratio under the biaxial stress was estimated to be 0.38, while the c/a ratio changed from 1.593 to 1.608. The biaxial strain was accounted maximum for the ZnO layer thickness of ⩾6–⩾200 nm. Free (FX A ), donor-bound (D 0 X), and neutral acceptor-bound (A 0 X) excitons energies were blue shifted with the increase of layer thickness to be 2.5, 4.8, and 5.8 meV, respectively. The strain-induced band shift for the FX A , FX B , and D 0 X bands was estimated with the corresponding energies of 13.1, 16.4, and 14.6 eV.The strain-induced optical band structure was analyzed using the Hamiltonian for the valence bands under the out-of-plane biaxial strain.