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Influence of Al content and annealing atmosphere on optoelectronic characteristics of Al:ZnO thin films

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Abstract

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) was cosputtered from ZnO and Al targets on glass substrates at room temperature. The effect of Al-target power and annealing atmosphere on structural and optoelectronic properties of AZO films was investigated.[Al]/[Zn] ratio increased to 0.258 when the Al-target power increased to 250 W. At a fixed Al-target power of 200 W, the [Al]/[Zn] ratio was 0.104 and the as-deposited AZO film demonstrated a low resistivity of 3.19 × 10−4 Ω-cm and high transmittance of approximately 90% in the visible region. After annealing at 500 °C in forming gas (5% H2 in Ar) atmosphere, the resistivity of the AZO film can be further reduced to 9.38 × 10−5 Ω-cm. Given its low-temperature process and good optoelectronic properties, sputtered AZO films that use ZnO and Al targets have high potential in various optoelectronic devices.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this research by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan under Grant No. NSC 106-2221-E-005 -026 -MY3. The present work was also supported in part by the Center for Micro/Nano Science and Technology of the National Cheng Kung University.

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  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 40227, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Feng-Kuan Chen, Du-Cheng Tsai, Erh-Chiang Chen & Fuh-Sheng Shieu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung, 41170, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Zue-Chin Chang

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Chen, FK., Tsai, DC., Chang, ZC. et al. Influence of Al content and annealing atmosphere on optoelectronic characteristics of Al:ZnO thin films. Appl. Phys. A 126, 743 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-020-03835-5

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