Strain evolution in Tin Oxide thin films deposited by powder sputtering method

Tin Oxide(SnO2) has been widely investigated as a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) and can be used in optoelectronic devices such as solar cell and flat-panel displays. It would be applicable to fabricating the wide bandgap semiconductor because of its bandgap of 3.6 eV. In addition, SnO2 is commonly used as gas sensors. To fabricate high quality epitaxial SnO2 thin films, a powder sputtering method was used, in contrast to typical sputtering technique with sintered target. Single crystalline sapphire(0001) substrates were used. The samples were prepared with varying the growth parameters such as gas environment and film thickness. Then, the samples were characterized by using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy measurements. We found that the strain evolution of the samples was highly affected by gas environment and growth rate, resulted in the delamination under O2 environment.