A systematic study of transparent conducting indium zinc oxide thin films

Abstract

Indium Zinc Oxide (IZO) thin films were deposited by RF magnetron co-sputtering of indium oxide and zinc oxide targets. The amorphous and crystalline thin films were prepared at 200A?C substrate temperature. The films were characterized by Hall Effect measurement, X-ray diffraction, energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, spectro-photometry, atomic force microscopy, conducting atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The composition dependence of the amorphous and the polycrystalline phases in the In2O3-ZnO system was explored. The films having M ratios {Zn/(Zn+In) atomic ratios} in the range of 0.19-0.43 were amorphous in nature, whereas the films having M ratios in the range of 0.48-0.87 were polycrystalline. The main emphasis was on the study of electric and optical properties and the correlation between them. The conduction mechanism in both amorphous and polycrystalline region was studied. The effect of vacuum annealing was studied for both amorphous and polycrystalline region.