Transparent conductive Al-doped ZnO thin films grown at room temperature

Abstract

High-temperature stability of postgrowth-annealed Al-doped MgxZn1-xO films without the phase separation effect J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 30, 061201 (2012); 10.1116/1.4754813Compositional study of vacuum annealed Al doped ZnO thin films obtained by RF magnetron sputtering Transparent conducting Al-doped ZnO thin films prepared by magnetron sputtering with dc and rf powers applied in combination Aluminum-doped ZnO ͑ZnO:Al, AZO͒ thin films were prepared on glass substrates by dc reactive magnetron sputtering from a Zn-Al alloy target at room temperature. The effects of the Ar-to-O 2 partial pressure ratios on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of AZO films were studied in detail. AZO films grown using 100:4 to 100:8 Ar-to-O 2 ratio result in acceptable quality films with c-axis orientated crystals, uniform grains, 10 −3 ⍀ cm resistivity, greater than 10 20 cm −3 electron concentration, and high transmittance, 90%, in the visible region. The lowest resistivity of 4.11ϫ 10 −3 ⍀ cm was obtained under the Ar-to-O 2 partial pressure ratio of 100:4. A relatively strong UV emission at ϳ3.26 eV was observed in the room-temperature photoluminescence spectrum. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis confirmed that Al was introduced into ZnO and substitutes for Zn and doped the film n-type.

Highly conductive and transparent alumina-doped ZnO films processed by direct pulsed laser recrystallization at room temperature

“…An average increase of 9%, 15%, and 16% in UV, VIS, and NIR regions, respectively, is obtained when AZO film is processed by (30 mJ/cm 2 , 30). Compared with previously reported AZO transmittance 80%-92% (only AZO), 4,11,12,19 films obtained here displays higher transparency (85%) as we measured both AZO and SLG.…”

“…3 Various deposition techniques operating at elevated temperatures were reported. [4][5][6][7][8] Some studies deposited AZO by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at low temperatures, [9][10][11][12][13] but poor properties were obtained. There is a need to develop a method to deposit highly conductive and transparent AZO at room temperature to apply to low melting point substrates such as plastics, polymers and papers.…”

Room temperature deposition of alumina-doped zinc oxide on flexible substrates by direct pulsed laser recrystallization

“…Compared our AZO film on Kapton with earlier reports on AZO film on SLG substrates, 10,11 higher hall mobility and lower carrier density are observed in the AZO film on Kapton processed by current DPLR technique. Although a slightly higher film resistivity is observed which may be ascribed to the intrinsic highly isolative substrate, this indicates that out of all room temperature techniques, DPLR is the most efficient methods to achieve good hall mobility and carrier concentration of TCO layers for thin film solar cell applications.…”

Al-doping and Properties of AZO Thin Films Grown at Room Temperature: Sputtering Pressure Effect

“…The substitution of zinc by aluminum in the ZnO matrix should increase the carrier concentration, leading to a reduction in resistivity. In addition, AZO may be synthesized by techniques such as MOCVD 6 , atomic layer deposition 7 , laser ablation 8 , electrochemical deposition 9 and sputtering [10][11][12][13][14][15] . The last of these permits the synthesis of AZO thin films at low temperatures [12][13][14] and over flexible substrates 15 .…”