Semiconducting properties of Al doped ZnO thin lms

Ahmed A. Al-Ghamdi
a,
, Omar A. Al-Hartomy
a,b
, M. El Okr
c
, A.M. Nawar
d
, S. El-Gazzar
d
,
Farid El-Tantawy
d
, F. Yakuphanoglu
a,e,
a
Physics Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
b
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Tabuk University, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia
c
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt
d
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt
e
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Firat University, Elazig 23169, Turkey
h i g h l i g h t s
Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin lms were
successfully deposited via spin
coating technique.
The optical band gap of the lms is
decreased with increasing Al content.
The AlZnO lms can be used for
optoelectronic applications in near
future.
g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 8 February 2014
Received in revised form 2 April 2014
Accepted 7 April 2014
Available online 18 April 2014
Keywords:
ZnO
Al-doped
Solgel
Thin lm
Optical and electrical properties
a b s t r a c t
Aluminum doped ZnO (AZO) thin lms were successfully deposited via spin coating technique onto glass
substrates. Structural properties of the lms were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy
(AFM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction results reveal that all the lms are
polycrystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferential orientation according to the direc-
tion (002) plane. The crystallite size of ZnO and AZO lms was determined from Scherrers formula and
WilliamsonHall analysis. The lattice parameters of the AZO lms were found to decrease with increasing
Al content. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) results indicate that Zn, Al and O elements are present
in the AZO thin lms. The electrical conductivity, mobility carriers and carrier concentration of the lms
are increased with increasing Al doping concentration. The optical band gap (E
g
) of the lms is increased
with increasing Al concentration. The AZO thin lms indicate a high transparency in the visible region
with an average value of 86%. These transparent AZO lms may be open a new avenue for optoelectronic
and photonic devices applications in near future.
2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Nowadays, transition-metal oxides and their alloys have been
fascinating due to their unique physical and chemical properties.
Zinc oxide with wide optical band gap (3.37 eV at room tempera-
ture), large exciton binding energy (60 meV) and admirable
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2014.04.020
1386-1425/ 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Corresponding authors. Address: Department of Physics, Faculty of Science,

Firat University, Elazig 23169, Turkey. Tel.: +90 4242370000x3792; fax: +90
4242330062 (F. Yakuphanoglu).
E-mail addresses: aghamdi90@hotmail.com (A.A. Al-Ghamdi), fyhanoglu@rat.
edu.tr (F. Yakuphanoglu).
Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 131 (2014) 512517
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and
Biomolecular Spectroscopy
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ saa
electron mobility has attracted great attention in various electron-
ics and photonics devices [13]. ZnO is applied for a variety of
important potential applications, such as chemical and gas sensors,
optical and magnetic memory devices, UV-light emitting diodes,
solar cells, piezoelectric transducers, photodiodes, photodetectors,
transparent conductive oxides, biomedical and more [49]. How-
ever, ZnO thin lm is prepared using various techniques such as
spray pyrolysis, radiofrequency sputtering, solgel spin coating,
pulsed laser deposition, chemical vapor deposition and laser
molecular beam epitaxy [912]. Today, the solgel chemistry is a
promising one for control of chemical components, low cost, low
processing temperature, uniform chemically homogenous lms,
high yield and scalable process [13]. The transparent conducting
oxide (TCO) thin lm materials with high electrical conductivity
and high optical transparency are being heavily used for several
of practical applications, such as at panel displays, sensors, optical
limiters and switches and a variety of devices that rely on the non-
linear optical response of their components [1416]. Increasing
consumption of TCO based on tin-doped indium oxide (ITO), rising
cost, low electrical conductivity 10
4
(Xcm)
1
, toxic indium and
instability in hydrogen plasma has a spur development for new
alternative transparent conducting sources. One of the most
important obstacles to overcome is how to improve the electrical
conductivity and optical transparency of metal oxides. Among
these approaches, metal oxides can be alloyed with proper ele-
ments to improve its optical, electrical, and magnetic performance.
Therefore, extrinsic doping like (Al, In, Ga, Cu, Cd, etc) is considered
as one of the most representative dopants and it can serve as a
donor in a ZnO lattice and increase wide band gap engineering
(i.e. induce defects), which will improve the electrical and optical
properties of ZnO. In fact, we believe that aluminum doped zinc
oxide is very useful for the fabrication of optoelectronic devices,
heterojunction and superlattices, and detectors [1012]. It
improves the electrical and optical properties of ZnO lms and
these properties also are depended on the production parameters
of ZnO lms by sol gel. The sol gel method is low cost which offers
several advantages such as easier composition control, controlling
the size, low processing temperature to improve the electronic
properties and product low cost semiconducting materials.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to synthesize Al doped ZnO
with different concentrations via solgel approach to obtain highly
conductive and transparency lms.
Furthermore, the microstructures and optical properties were
investigated in detail, too.
Experimental details
Preparation of AZO thin lms
Undoped ZnO precursor solution was prepared by dissolving
zinc acetate dehydrate [ZnAc:(Zn(CH
3
COO)
2
2H
2
O)] in 2-proponal
and diethanolamine (DEA, C
4
H
11
NO
2
). ZnAc was rst dissolved in
2-proponal and followed by addition of DEA to increase the solubil-
ity. The molar ratio of DEA/ZnAc was chosen as 1 corresponding to
a solution with 0.5 M concentration. In addition, to prepare Al
doped ZnO (AZO) precursor solution, aluminum acetate basic
hydrate [(CH
3
CO
2
)AlOHH
2
O] was used as doping agent. To obtain
AZO thin lms with different Al doping concentrations, the solu-
tions with different Al/Zn molar ratios of Al
+3
/Zn
+2
= 1%, 2%, 3%,
4%; were prepared by adding aluminum acetate basic hydrate to
the precursor solution prepared for ZnO. The prepared precursor
solutions were stirred at 70 C for 2 h to yield a clear and
homogenous solution. The glass substrates were cleaned in ethanol
for 10 min each by using an ultrasonic cleaner and then cleaned
with deionized water and dried. The gel solution was deposited
onto glass substrate at 3000 rpm for 30 s using a spin coater (Lau-
rell EDC-650-23B). After the deposition by spin coating, the lms
were preheated at 250 C for 10 min on hot plate to evaporate
the solvent and remove organic residuals. Finally, the lms were
annealed 400 C for 2 h.
Characterization tools of AZO thin lms
X-ray diffraction (X-ray) was used for crystal phase identica-
tion. X-ray patterns were obtained with a Philips PW3710 diffrac-
tometer using Cu Ka radiation at 35 kV and 25 mA. The surface
morphology of the thin lms was characterized by atomic force
microscopy (AFM) (AFM park system, 212). The element chemical
compositions of the lms were investigated by an energy disper-
sive X-ray spectrometer (EDX) (ISIS300, Oxford, England). The lm
thicknesses of un-doped and Al-doped ZnO thin lms with various
wt% Al of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 were determined to be about 112, 110,
106, 107 and 103 nm using AFM. The carrier concentration, mobil-
ity and resistivity were performed using the van der Pauw cong-
uration under direct current ranging from 3 10
3
to 5 10
4
A
and the applied magnetic eld was 0.37 T. The equipment used
for this purpose was a Keithley source-meter (model-6517 A).
Optical properties of the lms were examined with the normal
incident transmittance measured using Jasco (V-570) UV/VIS/NIR
spectrophotometer.
Results and discussion
Microstructure analysis of aluminum doped ZnO thin lms
The crystal phases and structures of the synthesized Al-doped
ZnO were performed using X-ray diffraction. Typical X-ray diffrac-
tion spectra for un-doped and Al-doped ZnO thin lms with
various wt% Al of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 3 are shown in Fig. 1. All the diffrac-
tion peaks are observed at 31.80, 34.46, 36.19, 47.54, 56.59,
62.81 and 67.87 corresponding to (100), (002), (101), (102),
(110), (103) and (112) respectively, which belong to a hexagonal
Fig. 1. X-ray patterns of pure ZnO and ZnO-doped Al lms with various doping
concentrations. All lms were annealed at 400 C in air for 2 h.
A.A. Al-Ghamdi et al. / Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 131 (2014) 512517 513
crystal structure with lattice parameters of a = 3.249 and
c = 5.206 and coincide with the peaks JCPDS Card No. 89-7102
[11]. No characteristics reection peaks related to Al and other
related impurities alumina phases were detected in the X-ray pat-
tern which supports that Al ions were substituted by Zn sites entire
the lattices of ZnO crystal. It is suggested that the synthesized AZO
nanoparticles exhibit (002) preferential orientation with the c-axis
perpendicular to the substrate [18]. In addition, no signicant
differences were observed for pure ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin
lms with the exception of the peak position of the (002) and
(101) which are slightly shifts due to substitution of zinc ions by
aluminum ions into the hexagonal lattice [12]. The sharp peaks
and high intensity reect that the synthesized Al-doped ZnO nano-
particles are well crystalline. In fact, the incorporation of Al into of
Zn may give rise to the generation of different sorts of stress stem-
ming from the differences in the ion size between Al and Zn, which
could be the reason behind the modications observed in the
structure [13,16]. Furthermore, for un-doped ZnO, the observed
peaks become the sharper and higher in intensity indicating the
increase the grain size. These peaks become more broadening with
Al concentration which agrees with decreasing the grain size as
calculated by Scherrer equation and Williamson Hall method.
The average grain size and lattice stain (c) of the lms were calcu-
lated using the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of all peaks
from the Scherrers equation [3,4]:
D
s

kk
b cos h
1
and Williamson Hall method equation:
bcos h
k

k
D
w

c sinh
k
2
where k is the shape factor, k is the wavelength of incident X-ray, b
is the FWHM measured in radians and h is the Bragg angle of
diffraction peak.
For hexagonal crystal structure, the lattice constants, (a) and (c)
are expressed by the following relation,
1
d
2
hkl

4h
2
hk k
2

3a
2

l
2
c
2
3
where hkl are the miller indices, d is the lattice spacing parameter
1
d
2
hkl

4sin
2
h
k
2

and k is the wavelength of the X-ray source. The
obtained crystallite size (D
s
) and (D
w
), lattice strain (c), a and c
lattice constants for the undoped ZnO and AZO hexagonal structure
are shown in Fig. 2. It is clear that the crystallite size, lattice
constants and lattice strain are decreased, as the Al dopant concen-
tration increases in ZnO lattice. The decrease in crystallite size, lat-
tice constants and lattice strain with increasing Al concentration in
ZnO is attributed to the interstitial substitution of Al ions in Zn sites
into ZnO lattice as conrmed by EDS results [10,19].
To assess the elemental composition of the synthesized
un-doped ZnO and AZO (contains 2 wt% Al) thin lms, the EDX
analysis was done and the result is shown in Fig. 3a and b, respec-
tively. In EDX spectrum, numerous well-dened peaks were
evident concerned to Zn, O, and Al which clearly support that the
AZO nanoparticles are made of Zn, O, and Al. No other peaks related
to impurities were detected in the spectrum, which further
conrms that the synthesized nanoparticles are Al doped ZnO.
In order to understand structural properties of the lms, the
morphology of undoped ZnO and two samples was examined by
0
5
10
15
20
0 1 2 3 4
Al concentration (wt %)
D

(
n
m
)

a
n
d

l
a
t
t
i
c
e

s
t
r
a
i
n
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
L
a
t
t
i
c
e

p
a
r
a
m
e
t
e
r
s

a

a
n
d

c

(
n
m
)
DAFM
Ds
Dw
lattice strain
c-axix
a-axis
Fig. 2. Particle size, lattice parameters, lattice strain of AZO thin lms.
Fig. 3. EDX of (a) undoped ZnO and (b) 4 wt% Al doped ZnO lms annealed 400 C in air for 2 h.
514 A.A. Al-Ghamdi et al. / Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 131 (2014) 512517
one-dimensional and three dimensional AFM. The AFM images of
un-doped ZnO and AZO lms are shown in Fig. 4ac, respectively.
As seen in Fig. 3a, the nanoparticles are grown in very high density
and well homogenously distributed along the surface of the lms
showing no voids. The typical diameters of the undoped ZnO and
AZO nanoparticles are evaluated and the results are depicted in
Fig. 2. From the cross section view in Fig. 4a, the AZO nanoparticles
grow normal to the ZnO lm. The surface roughnesses of lm for
undoped ZnO and ZnO doped Al are found to be 11, 9, 7, 6, and
4, respectively. It is clear that the surface roughness is decreased
with increased Al concentration into ZnO lattice.
Electrical and optical properties
For the applicability of the synthesized AZO lms to optoelec-
tronic devices, the knowledge of electrical parameters like electri-
cal conductivity (r), mobility carriers (l) and carrier
concentrations (N) are highly important and necessary. Electrical
conductivity, mobility carriers and carrier concentration of
undoped ZnO and ZnO doped-Al thin lms as a function of Al
concentration are shown in Fig. 5. It is seen that the conductivity,
carrier concentration and mobility are increased with increasing
Al concentration. The electrical conductivity of Al doped ZnO lms
are in agreement with the electrical conductivity of Al doped ZnO
lms prepared by RF magnetron sputtering [20]. From electrical
measurements, one can conclude that diffusion of Al effectively
is taking the penetration of impurities is deeper as diffusion of Al
concentration increases, and mobility is affected by impurity scat-
tering [1619]. The augmentation increase of electrical parameters
with increasing Al concentration of AZO thin lm can be evoked for
two reasons. First, with increasing Al concentration into ZnO lat-
tice, the Al ions creates an abundance number of free electrons in
the ZnO lattice, and in turn, the electrical conductivity increases.
This implies that the Al ions in the ZnO lattice are acting as a
Fig. 4. AEM images of (a) Undoped ZnO lms annealed at 400 C in air for 2 h, (b) AZO lm contains 2 wt% Al and (c) AZO lm contains 5 wt% Al.
A.A. Al-Ghamdi et al. / Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 131 (2014) 512517 515
charge carriers reservoir and acceptor impurities. Second, with
increasing Al concentration, the Al atoms get in more neck contact
into Zn sites leading to the acceleration of driving force of charge
carriers transport and therefore conductivity increases [11,12].
The optical transmittance is an important optical parameter for
transparent conducting oxides. Optical transmission spectra of
AZO lms annealed at 400 C in air for 2 h are depicted in Fig. 6.
All lms have an average optical transparency over 86% in the
visible range. This implies that the AZO thin lms transparent are
largely preserved. Moreover, a weak uctuation in the spectra is
mainly due to interference phenomenon between thin lm layers
[18,19]. As clearly seen in the gure, the edge of absorbance is
observed in the region of 343350 nm for all the studied lms.
The intensity of the absorption spectra is observed in the wave-
length region, k < 350 nm. When the Al doping is increased, the
lms transmission is decreased remarkably. According to the
X-ray result (Fig. 1), the AZO lms had weaker crystallization. This
fact may be due to the optical scattering by the grain boundaries
[9,10]. Optical absorbance of as synthesized AZO thin lms as a
function of Al concentration is depicted in Fig. 7. It is seen that,
UV absorption edge is shifted with increasing Al doping concentra-
tion, indicating the broadening of the optical band gap.
In order to calculate the optical band-gap energy (E
g
) of the AZO
thin lms, we assume that the absorption coefcient (a) is given by
the following relation [14,15]:
a
1
t

ln
1
T

4
1.E-02
1.E-01
1.E+00
1.E+01
Al concentration (wt %)
C
o
n
d
u
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

(
O
h
m

c
m
)
-
1
0
50
100
150
200
M
o
b
i
l
i
t
y

c
a
r
r
i
e
r

(
c
m
2
/
V

s
)

a
n
d

N

x

1
0

1
5

(
c
m
-
3
)

N
0 1 2 3 4
Fig. 5. Electrical conductivity, mobility carriers and carrier concentration of AZO as
a function of Al concentration.
Fig. 6. Optical transmittance spectra of AZO lms with various Al doping
concentrations. All lms were annealed at 400 C in air for 2 h.
Fig. 7. Optical absorbance spectra of AZO lms with various Al doping concentra-
tions. All lms were annealed at 400 C in air for 2 h.
Fig. 8. Plots of (aht)
2
against (ht) for undoped ZnO and AZO lms with various Al
doping concentrations and the inset is the estimated value of optical energy gap (E
g
)
versus Al concentration.
516 A.A. Al-Ghamdi et al. / Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 131 (2014) 512517
where T is the transmittance and t is the lm thickness. In fact,
wurtzite structure ZnO has a direct band gap, and in this case the
absorption edge for a direct band transition is analyzed by the
following relation [1619]:
aht Aht E
g

1=2
5
where ht is the photon energy and A is an energy-independent
constant.
The dependence of (aht)
2
on the photon energy (ht) for the AZO
with different concentration of Al is depicted in Fig. 8. The values of
the direct band gap were determined by extrapolations of the lin-
ear regions of the plots to zero absorption ((aht)
2
= 0). The
obtained E
g
values of Al doped ZnO lms are in agreement with
the E
g
values of Al doped ZnO lms prepared by RF reactive
magnetron sputtering technique [20,21]. The obtained values of
direct band gap of AZO lms as a function of Al concentration are
inset in Fig. 8. It is clear that, the direct band gap of the AZO lms
is increased with increasing Al content, which is explained by Bur-
steinMoss effect [10]. The increase in the optical band gap with
increasing Al concentration is due to the fact that Al ions tends
to occupy among ZnO lattice planes which leads to an increase of
the transport path of charge carriers into ZnO lattice as conrmed
by electrical parameters above. Furthermore, when Al doped ZnO,
donor electrons are formed at the bottom of the conduction band.
The doubly occupied states is prevented by Pauli principle and
therefore, the valence electrons is excited to higher energy level
in the conduction band with required extra energy. This causes a
broadening in the optical band gap with Al content.
Conclusions
Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin lms of nominal 112 nm thickness
were successfully prepared using solgel spin coating approach.
Structural analysis based on X-ray measurement has revealed that
both ZnO and AZO lms have the same crystal structures which
belong to hexagonal wurtzite system. In addition, it is observed
that Al doping ZnO promotes the growth in (002) orientation.
Based on recorded AFM images, it has been observed that a spher-
ical nanoparticles form on the surface of AZO lm with diameter of
14 nm. The conductivity, mobility carriers and carrier concentra-
tion are increased with increasing Al concentration. Transmission
measurement results indicate that both ZnO and AZO thin lms
have an average transmittance over 86% for the 350900 nm range.
The optical band gap energies of thin lms were determined based
on transmission spectra and it is found that the band gap energy is
increased with increasing Al doping concentration.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by Tabuk University under Projects
Nos.: S-0195-1434 and S-0196-1434. Authors thank to Tabuk
University for supporting. Also, this work was supported by
Tunisian Ministry of High Education. The authors gratefully
acknowledge and thank the Deanship of Scientic Research, King
Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for the research
group Advances in composites, Synthesis and applications. This
work is as a result of international collaboration of the group with
Prof. F. Yakuphanoglu.
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