Pulsed KrF laser annealing of RF sputtered ZnS : Mn thin films

Pulsed KrF laser annealing (PLA) of ZnS:Mn thin (800 nm) film phosphors has been investigated as an alternative to thermal annealing for the fabricati on of electroluminescent devices. The influence of the surrounding gas pres sure during exposure, the energy density (Ed) of the laser beam and the eff ect of double irradiation is reported. Luminescent properties as function o f laser energy density (Ed) are determined via photoluminescent (PL) charac terisation. Energy densities used vary from 53 to 777 mJ/cm(2). PL intensit ies are determined to be linearly dependent with Ed beyond a threshold of 1 50 mJ/cm(2) and maximum PL enhancement is a factor of 2.1x. A thermal simul ation of the PLA process suggest that PL improvement is proportional to dep osited thermal energy and this in the solid state. The calculated melting t hreshold agrees well with previous work. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.