Growth and characterization of hypothetical zinc-blende ZnO films on GaAs(001) substrates with ZnS buffer layers

A stable wurtzite phase of ZnO is commonly observed. In this letter, we rep ort the growth and characterization of zinc-blende ZnO on GaAs(001) substra tes. The ZnO films grown on GaAs(001) substrates using microwave-plasma-ass isted metalorganic molecular-beam epitaxy were characterized by reflection high-energy electron diffraction, x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscope, and atomic force microscope measurements. The use of a ZnS buff er layer was found to lead to the growth of the zinc-blende ZnO films. Alth ough the zinc-blende ZnO films were polycrystalline with columnar structure s, they showed bright band-edge luminescence at room temperature. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)01005-6].