Study of microstructured indium oxide by cathodoluminescence and XPS microscopy

Abstract

In this work sintered thick microcrystalline films as well as micro and nanostructures of In(2)O(3) have been studied. The results obtained by XPS microscopy show that the boundary regions of the microcrystalline films present a higher amount of oxygen, as well as a different O (1s) core level XPS spectrum with respect to the grains. CL images recorded at room temperature show that the emission is preferentially associated with the grain boundaries and the main emission band appeared at 1.9 eV in the recorded CL spectra. Core level and valence band spectromicroscopy measurements of the indium oxide arrows grown at the surface of the sintered InN revealed the incorporation of nitrogen, coming from the starting material. In these structures the N (1s) core level splits into two components, showing a higher amount of nitrogen in the pyramid surface than in the columns of the structures which correlates with an increase of CL intensity. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.