The origin of negative ions in the dc magnetron sputtering process using a ceramic indium-gallium-zinc oxide target has been investigated by in situ analyses. The observed negative ions are mainly O− with energies corresponding to the target voltage, which originates from the target and barely from the reactive gas (O2). Dissociation of ZnO−, GaO−, ZnO2−, and GaO2− radicals also contributes to the total negative ion flux. Furthermore, we find that some sputtering parameters, such as the type of sputtering gas (Ar or Kr), sputtering power, total gas pressure, and magnetic field strength at the target surface, can be used to control the energy distribution of the O− ion flux.

This work presents the spatial distribution of electrical characteristics of amorphous indium-tin-zinc oxide film (a-ITZO), and how they depend on the magnetron sputtering conditions using O2, H2O, and N2O as the reactive gases. Experimental results show that the electrical properties of the N2O incorporated a-ITZO film has a weak dependence on the deposition location, which cannot be explained by the bombardment effect of high energy particles, and may be attributed to the difference in the spatial distribution of both the amount and the activity of the reactive gas reaching the substrate surface. The measurement for the performance of a-ITZO thin film transistor (TFT) also suggests that the electrical performance and device uniformity of a-ITZO TFTs can be improved significantly by the N2O introduction into the deposition process, where the field mobility reach to 30.8 cm2 V–1 s–1, which is approximately two times higher than that of the amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide TFT.

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