Structure, Optical and Electrical Properties of AI-doped ZnO Thin Film Grown in Hydrogen-Incorporated Sputtering Gas

Low RF power density was used for preparing transparent conducting AI-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films by RF Magnetron Sputtering on Corning 1737 glass. The dependence of films' structural, optical and electrical properties on sputtering gas, film's thickness and substrate temperature were investigated. Low percent of incorporated H2 in Ar sputtering gas has proven to reduce film's resistivity and sheet resistance as low as $4.1\times10^{-3}{\Omega}.cm$. It also formed new preferred peaks orientation of (101) and (100) which indicated that the c-axis of AZO films was parallel to the substrate. From UN-VIS-NIR Spectrophotometer analysis, it further showed high optical transmittance at about $\~ 90\%$ at visible light spectra (400-700nm).