Hybrid nanostructured thin-films by PLD for enhanced field emission performance for radiation micro-nano dosimetry applications

We report the observation of hybrid nanostructured thin-films such as diamond-like carbon (DLC) signature on the ZnO epitaxial thin-films grown onto the device silicon/quartz substrate by reactive pulsed laser deposition (r-PLD) under the argon–oxygen (Ar|O2) ambient at 573 K. Undoped and Carbon (C) doped epitaxial ZnO thin-film layer formation is revealed by the accelerator based ion-beam analysis (IBA) technique of resonant Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RRBS), glancing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) pattern, micro-Raman spectroscopy (μ-RS) and field-emission (F-E) studies. The RRBS and GIXRD results show the deposition of epitaxial thin-films containing C into ZnO. The μ-RS technique is a standard nondestructive tool (NDT) for the characterization of crystalline, nano-crystalline, and amorphous carbons (a-C). As grown ZnO and C-doped ZnO thin-films μ-RS result reveal the doping effect of C-impurities that appear in the form of DLC evident from Raman peaks at 1357 and 1575 cm−1 along with a wurtzite structure peak at 438 cm−1 with E2(h) phonon of ZnO. The electron transport F-E result shows the hybrid thin-films has high conductivity than the un-doped film. Fabricated hybrid nanostructured thin-films materials could be very useful for the emerging applications of micro-nano dosimetry. [Display omitted] •Observation of hybrid nanostructured diamond-like carbon (DLC) on ZnO epitaxial thin-films at 573 K.•Carbon doped epitaxial ZnO thin-film layer formation is revealed by RRBS, Micro-Raman.•Field-emission (F-E) study.•DLC formation evident from Raman peaks at 1357 and 1575 cm−1 along with a wurtzite structure peak of ZnO.•The electron transport F-E result shows the hybrid thin-film has high conductivity than the undoped thin-film.