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Description
Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were fabricated by the pulsed dc magnetron sputtering technique on different types of the substrates. The influences of the argon flow rate on the crystal structures, the physical morphologies, the optical properties, and the electrical attributes were investigated with the grazing-incident X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), the field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), the UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometry, and the Hall measurements, respectively. The GIXRD analyses indicated that the AZO films were predominantly polycrystalline with the hexagonal wurtzite structure. The FE-SEM micrographs showed that the film thickness was increased with the increase of the argon-gas flow rate. The optical transmission of the prepared thin films exhibited higher than 84 % in the visible range. Finally, the AZO thin film deposited at 120 sccm-argon flow rate yielded the highest electrical resistivity of 8.453 × 10−3 Ω cm, with the carrier concentration of -1.623 × 1020 cm−3, and the charge mobility of 4.551 cm2/Vs.
Keyword: AZO, thin film, TCO, sputtering
