Find two links.

My experience: ZnO powders have to be small, then compressed in air to avoid oxygen loss and heated to release absorbed air. Compression must be kept for a while, a few hours and then released slowly. Non bonded targets of ceramic materials shall be below 3 mm of thickness or they would break upon heating. Indium or silver bonding work until it began to appear in the deposits. You could also try a recipient to contain the powder and then the bonding is done but pores and air bubbles will be deleterious . For metal targets. You can melt Zn in a the recipient where the target will be included, better made of Cu. Phosphoric acid shall be used to ensure wettability of Zn onto Cu. Care to avoid oxidation and, bubble formation has to be taken.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US5922176.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_make_the_target_materials_for_metal_Fe_Cr_Sn_Co_doped_ZnO_thin_films_by_RF_Sputtering

thank you for your help.

My advise for making good quality ZnO films.

Firstly oxide targets made from ZnO powders are not stable. Powders are costly, and large diameter target are not easy to prepare. After some sputtering runs, oxide targets become non stohciometric, and similarly with PLD technique, after some ablations the target stoichiometry changes. Yu have to scrape the targets, and then re-use them.

You normally make tagets using the standard ceramic process.  Use high purity ZnO powders, press the powders into discs, use a binder material, and the  sinter the pressed compacts at an appropriate temperature to achieve high density.

1) In case you are using PLD technique, you have to use oxide targets only.

    and also employ high substrate temperatures to get good crystallnity.

    Making insulating films by PLD is a big challenge, you most end up with semiconducting ZnO films

2) however if you are using sputtering techniques, you can make ZnO films very conveniently by simply taking Zn metal targets and do reactive sputtering in Ar+O2.

It offers many advantages.

You can make highly insulating, and even semiconducting films of high quality, by controlling the Ar/O2 ratio.

You can easily purchase 2mm thick Zn metal plates of high purity from any standard chemical company, and get them machined into circular discs of required diameter, and use them as targets. Using Zn metal targets is more reliable, and long standing, and can be sputtered at high powers to get high deposition rates.

Whereas oxide targets normally tend to crack at higher powers.They should be highly dense, and making oxide targets of diameters larger than 2 inches is a speciallized job, and even purchasing them becomes costly.

Pl. let me know what diameter targets are you planning for, and by which technique are you planning to make your ZnO films. 

dear K.Sreenivas,

firstly i want to thank you for your help, the diameter is about 10-15 cm and the technique is sputtering or evaporation.

10 to 15 cm is definitely a large diameter target.

1)commercially available ZnO powder targets are quite costly.

    and oxide target bonded to copper blanks will be more expensive.

2) If you try to prepare such large diameter target by pressing ZnO powders, and make sintered targets, you need a good hydraulic press to compact the powders, an appropriate die, and then sinter the compacted powder disc. Finally you need a good furnace with a large flat zone, otherwise the sintered disc will warp, and you will be unable to get flat sintered discs that can be used as sputtering targets3

Moreover such oxide target will not be reiable in the long run, and they may ten to crack at high rf powers, unless you bond them to a copper blanking plate.with specially thermally and electrically conducting cements.

3) On the contrary Zn metal discs of 10 to 15 cm dia are relatively inexpensive, and will last a much longer time, and you can do reactive sputtering easily , to make ZnO films.

K. Sreenivas

Oxide targets are prone to cracking, if they are not bonded well to a metal disc preferably copper disc. You can presss ZnO powder and make ceramic targts by sintering.

Pressing Zinc powder needs some expertise. This get into the area known as powder metallurgy, you have to press the powders and sinter them either in vacuum or an inert gas atmosphere to prevent oxidation.

Instead of pressing Zn power, you can easily purchase Zinc sheets of about 2mm thickness, or even 1mm in thickness, they are quite inexpensive, and cut circular discs out of them to make your target.

K. Sreenivas