To evaluate the influence of film thickness on the structural, electrical, and?optical properties of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films, a set of polycrystalline AZO?samples with different thickness were deposited on glass substrates by ionbeam?sputtering deposition (IBSD). X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force?microscopy (AFM), energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), four-point?probe measurements, and spectrophotometry were used to characterize the?films. XRD showed that all the AZO films had preferred c-axis orientation. The?ZnO (110) peak appeared, and the intensity increased, with increasing
thickness. All the samples exhibited compressive intrinsic stresses. AFM?showed that the grain size along with the root-mean-square (RMS) roughness?increased with increasing thickness. The decrease of resistivity is due to the
corresponding change in grain size, surface morphology, and chemical composition.The average optical transmittance of the AZO films was over 80%,and a sharp fundamental absorption edge with red-shifting was observed in?the visible region. The optical band gap decreased from 3.95 eV to 3.80 eV?when the AZO film thickness increased from 100 nm to 500 nm.
Guang-Xing Liang,Ping Fan,Xing-Min Cai,Dong-Ping Zhang and Zhuang-Hao Zheng
Journal of Electronic Materials