Blue-violet luminescence double peak of In-doped films prepared by radio frequency sputtering

ZnO films doped with different contents of indium were prepared by radio frequency sputtering technique. The structural, optical and emission properties of the films were characterized at room temperature using XRD, XPS, UV–vis–NIR and PL techniques. Results showed that the indium was successfully incorporated into the c-axis preferred orientated ZnO films, and the In-doped ZnO films are of over 80% optical transparency in the visible range. Furthermore, a double peak of blue-violet emission with a constant energy interval (∼0.17 eV) was observed in the PL spectra of the samples with area ratio of indium chips to the Zn target larger than 2.0%. The blue peak comes from the electron transition from the Zni level to the top of the valence band and the violet peak from the InZn donor level to the VZn level, respectively.