Effect of Hydrogen on Reactive Sputtering of Transparent Oxide Films

The article reports on the effect of addition of H-2 into a mixture of Ar+O-2 on the process of dc reactive magnetron sputtering of oxides and the electrical conductivity of transparent oxide films. Four systems were investigated: (i) In-Sn-O (ITO), (ii) TiO2, (iii) Ti-Y-O, and (iv) ZrO2 films. It was found that the addition of H-2 into Ar+O-2 sputtering gas mixture results in: (i) decrease in the magnetron discharge voltage U-d, (ii) strong change of the dependence p(O2) = f(phi(O2)), and (iii) dramatic decrease of the electrical resistivity of sputtered transparent oxide films; here p(O2) and phi(O2) are the partial pressure and flow rate of oxygen, respectively. These results are described in detail.