Optical, electrical and mechanical properties of Ga-doped ZnO thin films under different sputtering powers

• GZO films were grown on glass at room temperature.
• GZO film shows the low resistivity and high transmittance.
• Transmittance spectrum was used to caculate the electron properties of GZO films.
• Compressive bending force per unit width influences the electron mobility.

We present the optical, electrical and mechanical properties of Ga-doped zinc oxide (GZO) thin films prepared by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering at room temperature under different RF powers (80–180 W). The thickness, electron concentration, and electron mobility of the GZO thin film were determined by fitting the visible-to-near-infrared transmittance spectrum of GZO film/glass using the transfer matrix method. The bending force per unit width was measured by a home-made Twyman–Green interferometer with the fast Fourier transform method. The obtained results show that the optical, electrical and mechanical properties of GZO thin film are subject to the RF power. At an RF power of 140 W, the local minimum of bending force per unit width corresponds to the highest electron mobility in GZO thin film. This study demonstrates that the optical, electrical and mechanical properties of GZO thin film can be fully resolved by non-contact optical methods.