Growth Evolution of AZO thin Films Deposited by Magnetron Sputtering at Room Temperature

Abstract

Thin AZO films were grown by RF magnetron sputtering for different deposition times in argon plasmas. Optical, structural, and morphological properties, together with elemental composition, were studied and correlated with the observed effects on the electrical properties and compared with two models of mobility scattering (ionized impurities and grain boundaries). The results suggest that the carrier density in the studied case is limited to below 15% owing to the low ionization efficiency caused by the formation of neutral impurities as homologous phases. While the spread in the mobility during the initial stages of film growth is strongly influenced by grain boundaries, in thicker films the limitation on ion efficiency becomes more significant.

High optoelectronic quality of AZO films grown by RF-magnetron sputtering for organic electronics applications

“…We observe that, as these new peaks intensified, there was a decrease in the crystallite size from 33 nm to 27 nm, as can be seen from the graph in figure 3. Probably the increase of (103) and (101) peaks can be related to this change of grain shapes from columnar to misoriented crystallites [29,30], evidenced by the decrease of crystallite size in the (002) direction.…”

“…We observe that, as these new peaks intensified, there was a decrease in the crystallite size from 33 nm to 27 nm, as can be seen from the graph in figure3. Probably the increase of (103) and (101) peaks can be related to this change of grain shapes from columnar to misoriented crystallites[29,30], evidenced by the decrease of crystallite size in the (002) direction.We determined the FWHM values for diffraction peaks in order to understand the crystallinity of AZO films as a function of deposition parameters, as can be seen in table 1. Despite the XRD peaks having different intensities, the FWHM values…”