Tunable physical properties of Al-doped ZnO thin films by O₂ and Ar plasma treatments

Abstract

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) is a promising transparent conducting oxide that can replace indium tin oxide (ITO) owing to its excellent flexibility and eco-friendly characteristics. However, it is difficult to immediately replace ITO with AZO because of the difference in their physical properties. Here, we study the changes in the physical properties of AZO thin films using Ar and O2 plasma treatments. Ar plasma treatment causes the changes in the surface and physical properties of the AZO thin film. The surface roughness of the AZO thin film decreases, the work function and bandgap slightly increase, and the sheet resistance significantly decreases. In contrast, a large work function change is observed in the AZO thin film treated with O2 plasma; however, the change in other characteristics is not significant. Therefore, the results indicate that post-treatment using plasma can accelerate the development of high-performance transparent devices.

Effect of sputtering power and substrate temperature on structural, optical, wettability and anti-icing characteristics of aluminium doped zinc oxide

“…One of the most promising alternatives to indium tin oxide (ITO) is zinc oxide (ZnO) since the elements are easily available and that are also safe and reliable throughout the process of designing. Pulsed laser deposition [2], atomic layer depsoiton [3], magnetron sputtering [4,5], chemical vapour deposition [6], sol-gel dip coating [7] and sol-gel spin coating [8] are only some of the methods that can be used to synthesize it. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an n-type semiconductor with a broad direct band gap (3.37 eV) in the near-UV spectral region and great chemical stability; nevertheless, its high resistivity prevents it from being widely used in thermochromic elements (TCEs).…”

Selective Surface Treatment Using Atmospheric Ar Plasma Jet for Aluminum‐doped Zinc Oxide Based Transparent and Flexible Electronics

“…The Ar plasma treatment can form oxygen vacancies in n‐type materials and metal vacancies in p‐type materials, which increase the electrical conductivity of the oxide thin film by generating free electrons and holes, respectively. [ 36 ] This study aimed to induce a reduction in sheet resistance by using atmospheric pressure Ar plasma bombardment and thermal diffusion to induce the formation of oxygen vacancies ( Figure a). For the AZO fabricated on PET substrates, an increase in oxygen vacancies and O 2− was observed after plasma treatment (Figure 5b,c).…”

Etching characteristics and surface properties of fluorine-doped tin oxide thin films under CF4-based plasma treatment

“…The vacuum in the main process chamber was maintained at 8 × 10 -4 Torr, which was achieved using rotary and turbomolecular pumps. The temperature of the substrate can be controlled using an external cooling cycle [27]. In this study, the etching trends of the FTO thin films under CF4/Ar-mixed plasma were obtained under the following conditions: total gas flow rate of 100 sccm, RF source power of 500 W, RF bias power of 150 W, process pressure of 15 mTorr, and the substrate was maintained at 25 ℃.…”