I have deposited AZO films of around 150nm using a target of ZnO-Al 98-2 wt% and 99.99% pure on glass substrate using RF sputtering. But the sheet resistance is very high as compared to other literatures.
For RF power of 150W, sheet resistance is approx. 74321ohm/sq
For RF power of 300W, sheet resistance is approx. 8126 ohm/sq
Please suggest how I can improve the film quality.....
If you increase your film thickness more, you will find the sheet resistance to decrease.
K. Sreenivas Thank you sir for your kind suggestion. But we need to maintain the transmittance as high as possible. We prefer to have layer thickness less than 150nm.
A couple of things come to mind, (1) what is your pre-sputtering vacuum level? (2) how are you preparing your substrate and is it heated to help remove surface contaminants?
Martin Goodchild pre sputtering vacuum level was around 1x10^-5. Glass substrate was properly ultrasonicated in IPA and acetone, but not heated.
It all depends on your sputtering conditions.
1) Are you using an oxide target AZO, or
2) Al-Zn metallic alloy target and doing reactive sputtering.
In any case if you are using Ar+O2 sputtering gas, you can tune the O2 percentage. Keep your rf power and film thickness constant
Alternately you can anneal your films in reducing ambient after deposition.
i) In vacuum
ii) Nitrogen atmosphere
iii) N2/H2 ambient
Annealing Temperature should not be more than 200 deg C, as you are using ordinary glass substrate.
You can also try substrate heating up to 200 deg C, this will increase only the crystallinity of the deposited films, and would increase the mobility a little bit.
Well definitely you have to optimize the conditions a little bit
Можно рекомендовать для нанесения пленки AZO толщиной до 150 нм технологию коллективного батутного распыления оксидной мишени AZO. При батутном распылении перенос материала мишени в пленку происходит в виде нанокластеров размером в несколько нанометров с сохранением состава и свойств материала мишени.
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