The quality of sputtered thin films depends largely on the employed target's chemical, electrical, and microstructural characteristics. This paper explores the application of cold spraying (CS) in manufacturing dense, uniform, and high-performance sputtering targets for ZnO thin films. Zn/ZnO nanocomposite powders with 25, 50, and 75 wt-% ZnO were cold sprayed on Cu substrate. The samples were characterized with respect to their prime properties as well as their performance when used as targets to produce ZnO thin films. By increasing the amount of the nanoparticles in the target, the electrical resistivity and densification of the targets increased at the price of decreased deposition efficiency. Furthermore, the maximum sputtering rate and the most uniform thin film were obtained from the target containing 50 wt-% ZnO. The results confirm the viability of the CS method for manufacturing high-quality Zn/ZnO sputtering targets that can be directly deposited on backplates without additional adhesion treatments.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.