Effects of oxygen addition on physical properties of ZnO thin film grown by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering

Abstract

We deposited a ZnO thin film on a microslide glass substrate at room temperature by employing the RF reactive magnetron sputtering process. Our results revealed that deposition rate decreases by increasing O(2)/(Ar + O(2)) ratio that was caused by two mechanisms. The first mechanism was the reduction of plasma density and, thus, argon ion density; caused by the addition of highly electronegative oxygen. While the second mechanism was target poisoning caused by the oxidation of the target. Additionally, at the O(2)/(Ar + O(2)) ratio of similar to 0.3 and the help of XPS analysis the optimum stoichiometry of ZnO thin film (the highest binding energy and content fraction of O(1) peak (O-Zn bond)) and the best polycrystallinity (the lowest FWHM with largest grain size) was found. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.