Applied Surface Science, Vol.253, No.6, 2999-3003, 2007
Effects of hydrogen flux on the properties of Al-doped ZnO films sputtered in Ar+H-2 ambient at low temperature
Al-doped ZnO (AZO) transparent conductive thin films were grown by magnetron sputtering with AZO (98 wt.% ZnO, 2 wt.% Al2O3) ceramic target in Ar + H-2 ambient at a relatively low temperature of 100 degrees C. To investigate the dependence of crystalline and properties of as-grown AZO films on the H-2-flux, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoemission spectrometer (XPS), Hall and transmittance spectra measurements were employed to analyze the AZO samples deposited with different H-2-flux. The results indicate that H2-flux has a considerable influence on the transparent conductive properties of AZO films. The resistivity of 4.15 x 10(-4) Omega cm and the average transmittance of more than 94% in the visible range were obtained with the optimal H-2-flux of 1.0 sccm. Such a low temperature growing method present here may be especially useful for some low-melting point photoelectric devices and substrates. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.