Effects of Growth Temperature on the Properties of ZnO Thin Films Grown by Radio-frequency Magnetron Sputtering

The effects of the growth temperature on the properties of ZnO thin films were investigated by using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry, and Hall measurements. The ZnO films were deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at various growth temperatures in the range of 100-400 degrees C. A strong c-axis preferred orientation is observed for all of the samples. As the growth temperature increases, the crystalline orientation of the ZnO (002) plane is not changed, but the full width at half maximum gets smaller. The dependence of the electron concentration, mobility, and resistivity on the growth temperature exhibits that the ZnO films have a higher electron concentration at higher temperatures, thus giving them a low resistivity. The optical transmittance and band gap energy, calculated from the spectra of optical absorbance, show a significant dependence on the growth temperature. As for the sample grown at 100 degrees C, the average transmittance is about 90% in the visible wavelength range and the band gap is estimated to be 3.13 eV.