Study of ZnO:AI thin films prepared by ArF excimer laser ablation

Abstract

<span style="font-size: 15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif""="">Thin films of aluminum doped zinc oxide (ZnO:AI) have been deposited on quartz/corning glass substrate by pulsed laser deposition technique using ArF excimer laser (λ= 193 nm) at room temperature. To grow the films, a repetition rate of 10Hz, an energy density of 2-3 J/cm^{<span style="font-size: 13.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:6.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif""="">2</span>}<span style="font-size:13.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:6.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif""=""> <span style="font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif""="">and an irradiation time of 10-60 min (6000-36000 shots) were maintained. The electrical and optical properties were found to depend on irradiation time. <span style="font-size:15.5pt;mso-bidi-font-size:8.5pt;font-family:" arial","sans-serif""="">It <span style="font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:8.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif""="">was observed that thickness and optical transmittance of the ZnO:AI increased and band gap decreased with the increase of number of laser shots. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the crystallinity and grain size of the film improved with increase in number of laser shots. The films are found to be strongly c-axis oriented polycrystalline having a resistivity of 1.21×10^-3) Ω-Cm for as grown films and a transmittance of 90-95% in the visible region. In these pulsed laser deposited films, transmittance is found to be better than those obtained by other deposition techniques such as RF and DC Magnetron sputtering, chemical vapour deposition, sol gel and spray pyrolysis.

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