Characterization of Transparent and Conductive ZnO:Ga Thin Films Produced by Rf Sputtering at Room Temperature

Abstract

Gallium-doped zinc oxide films were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature as a function of the substrate-target distance. The best results were obtained for a distance of 10 cm, where a resistivity as low as 2.7×10-4 Ωcm, a Hall mobility of 18 cm2/Vs and a carrier concentration of 1.3×1021 cm-3 were achieved. The films are polycrystalline presenting a strong crystallographic c-axis orientation (002) perpendicular to the substrate. The films present an overall transmittance in the visible part of the spectra of about 85 %, in average. The low resistivity, accomplished with a high growth rate deposited at RT, enables the deposition of these films onto polymeric substrates for flexible applications.

Growth and Characterization of Single Crystalline Ga-doped ZnO Thin Films Using Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

“…Furthermore, Ga has lower cost than In and has higher oxidation resistance than Al, which makes it as a preferred dopant for ZnO thin films in TCO applications. Ga doped ZnO (GZO) are reported as n-type thin films [9][10]. GZO can be deposited by various methods such as sputtering, thermal evaporation, pulsed laser, sol-gel, spray-pyrolysis, and chemical vapor deposition [11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”