Formation of ST12 phase Ge nanoparticles in ZnO thin films

In this work, we investigate the effects of reactive and nonreactive growth of ZnO on the rapid thermal annealing (RTA) induced formation of Ge nanoparticles (Ge-np) in ZnO: Ge nanocomposite thin films. The samples were deposited by sequential sputtering of ZnO and Ge thin film layers with a total thickness of about 600 nm on Si substrates followed by an ex-situ (RTA) at 600$^{\circ}$C for 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, and 210 s under forming gas atmosphere. In order for the reactive sputtering of ZnO layer, 5 mTorr Oxygen was introduced to the growth chamber. XRD and Raman analyses were utilized to investigate the effect of RTA time on the structural evolution of the samples. It has been realized that crystal structure of Ge nanoparticles is significantly affected by the growth method of the embedding ZnO layer. While reactive deposition of ZnO layers results in a mixture of diamond cubic (DC) and simple tetragonal (ST12) Ge-np, nonreactive deposition of ZnO layers leads to the formation of pure DC Ge-np upon RTA process. Formation of these two phases has been discussed based on the existence of native point defects such as oxygen vacancies and Zn interstitials.