Preparation Of AZO Thin Films By Magnetron Sputtering And Study Of Electrical Properties

Transparent conductive oxide films are widely used in solar cells, flat panel displays and other fields because of its low resistivity and high optical transmittance. Transparent conductive oxide films include In2O3,SnO2,Zn0,SnO2:F(FTO), In2O3:Sn (ITO). ZnO:AI(AZO). AZO(Al doped ZnO) film has became a hot research topic because of its excellent electrical and optical properties.The optical transmittance of AZO thin films can be above85%. The biggest obstacles to hinder the battery development is to obtain the low resistivity’ AZO thin films. Thus the AZO thin films were prepared by magnetron sputtering and effect of parameters including substrate temperature, gas pressure, deposition time on the crystal structure of AZO thin films and electrical properties were studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope(SEM), the instrument of steps, hall test equipment were employed to characterize and analyse the films.The results show that crystalline structure of the deposited films changed significantly with increasing substrate temperature, while argon gas pressure and deposition time prominently effected the (103) to (002) diffraction intensity ratio. Temperature influenced surface topography seriously, while argon gas pressure and deposition time did not. As gas pressure increased, the thickness of filmes decreased. As the deposition time increased, the thickness of thin films increased too. But temperature has not effect on the thickness. As substrate temperature was increased, thin film resistivity decreased sharply and carrier concentration and hall mobility increased prominently. Film resistivity decreased with increasing argon gas pressure, and then increased, and temperature affected it little.