Effect of Substrate Temperature on the Properties of Nanostructured ZnO Thin Films Elaborated by Sputtering RF-Magnetron

Thin zinc oxide doped with gallium layers were prepared by rf-magnetron sputtering from nanoparticles synthesized by sol-gel method. Increasing the deposition temperature has resulted in a change of preferred orientations of (002) with an intermediate step-like structure of powder. The films showed different morphologies of the surface of the grains that are dependent on the deposition temperature. This result is interpreted by a coalescence of small grains is favored by accoisement the substrate temperature. The optical measurements showed that the films have a maximum transmission at about 90 %. Thin films of GZO, have a low resistivity, with a minimum value of 2.20 10 Ω.cm deposited at a substrate temperature of 200 ° C with a small thickness of about 300 nm. We found that the resistivity decreases with increasing substrate temperature the decrease is caused by the improvement of crystallinity, concentration and mobility of charge carriers. KeywordsThin films, Zinc oxide, rf-magnetron sputtering, optical and electrical properties