Researching the dislocation in the ZnO films coated with AlN layers annealed at high temperature

The ZnO films coated with AlN layers were annealed at different temperature. For comparison, a ZnO film without an AlN layer was also annealed. It has been observed, from room temperature photoluminescence, that the ZnO films coated with AlN layers do not show a deep level peak, reported to be associated with oxygen vacancies an similar oxygen defects. Low temperature photoluminescence shows that the intensity of the peak at 3.336 eV increases as a function of the annealing temperature, while the AlN layer somewhat decreases the intensity of this peak. It is evident that this peak at about 3.336 eV may be associated with increased dislocation formation in the ZnO thin film.