Depth Dependence of Tetragonal Distortion of a ZnO/Mg_0.1Zn_0.9O/ZnO Heterostructure Studied by Rutherford Backscattering/Channeling

Rutherford backscattering and channeling are used to characterize the structure of a ZnO/Mg_0.1Zn_0.9O/ZnO heterostructure grown on a sapphire (0001) substrate by rf plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The results show that the Mg_0.1Zn_0.9O layer has the same hexagonal wurtzite structure as the underlying ZnO layer, and the heterostructure has a good crystalline quality with χ_min =5%, which is the ratio of the backscattering yields of aligned and random spectra in the near-surface region. Using the channeling angular scan around an off-normal <12^-13> axis in the 101^-0 plane of both ZnO and MgZnO layer, the tetragonal distortion e_T, which is caused by the elastic strain in the epilayer, is determined. The depth dependence of e_T is obtained by using this technique. It can clearly be seen that the elastic strain rapidly decreases with the increase in thickness of the ZnO film in the early growth stage and becomes slightly larger in the region of the Mg_0.1Zn_0.9O layer.