| AVS 55th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Thin Film | Thursday Sessions |
| Session TF-ThP |
| Session: | Aspects of Thin Films |
| Presenter: | J. Oda, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan |
| Authors: | J. Oda, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan T. Miyata, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan T. Minami, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
This paper describes the relationship between the targets used and the obtained properties of transparent conducting impurity-doped ZnO thin films prepared by a dc magnetron sputtering (dc-MS) deposition method using various sintered oxide targets. The oxide thin films were deposited on glass substrates using a dc-MS apparatus with various sintered impurity-doped ZnO targets; both the target and substrate were fixed during the depositions. In this work, we used various commercially available high-density sintered impurity-doped ZnO disk targets (diameter of about 150 mm). All thin films were prepared with a thickness in the range from 30 to 200 nm; the substrate temperature was controlled to a constant 200oC during sputtering depositions. It was found that the amount of observable arcing generated during the sputter deposition was considerably dependent on the targets used; in addition, it always increased as the supplied dc power was increased. The obtained minimum resistivity (the resistivity near the substrate location that corresponds to the target center) and the spatial distribution of resistivity on the substrate surface in deposited impurity-doped ZnO thin films were both dependent on the targets used; the varied target properties included density, resistivity and the kind and content of doped impurity. In addition, the film thickness dependence of the obtained resistivity and the stability of the resistivity during long term tests at high temperature in a highly moist environment were considerably affected by the targets used. Improvements in the thickness dependence and the distribution on the substrate surface of resistivity were successfully obtained by varying the target properties. The obtained improvements in deposited films will be discussed on the basis of the relationship between the properties found in both the deposited films and the targets used.