Luminescence and structural properties of defects in ion implanted ZnO

ZnO substrates and films were intentionally implanted with rare earth and transition metal ions. The influence of the implantation and subsequent air thermal annealing treatments on the structural and optical properties of ZnO samples were studied by using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and low temperature photoluminescence techniques. Intraionic Tm-related emission was observed for bulk and ZnO films. Similarly, Eu and Tb-doped ZnO films follow the same trend observed in bulk samples. No intraionic related emission was observed for Eu-doped samples even being the ion in Zn sites and for the Tb-doped samples ion segregation was observed for thermal annealing temperatures above 800 °…