Structural and optical properties of DC reactive magnetron sputtered zinc aluminum oxide thin films

Journal Article · Wed Oct 15 04:00:00 EDT 2014 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4898229· OSTI ID:22308000

Highly transparent conductive Zinc Aluminum Oxide (ZAO) thin films have been deposited on glass substrates using DC reactive magnetron sputtering method. The thin films were deposited at 200 °C and post-deposition annealing from 15 to 90 min. XRD patterns of ZAO films exhibit only (0 0 2) diffraction peak, indicating that they have c-axis preferred orientation perpendicular to the substrate. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is used to study the surface morphology of the films. The grain size obtained from SEM images of ZAO thin films are found to be in the range of 20 - 26 nm. The minimum resistivity of 1.74 × 10{sup −4} Ω cm and an average transmittance of 92% are obtained for the thin film post annealed for 30 min. The optical band gap of ZAO thin films increased from 3.49 to 3.60 eV with the increase of annealing time due to Burstein-Moss effect. The optical constants refractive index (n) and extinction coefficient (k) were also determined from the optical transmission spectra.

• OSTI ID: 22308000
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 1620; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
ANNEALING
DEPOSITION
EV RANGE
GLASS
GRAIN ORIENTATION
GRAIN SIZE
MORPHOLOGY
REFRACTIVE INDEX
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SPUTTERING
SUBSTRATES
SURFACES
THIN FILMS
X-RAY DIFFRACTION
ZINC COMPOUNDS