Deposition of AZO thin film using RF and ICP at facing magnetron sputtering system

• We have deposited AZO thin film on glass substrate using FTS system with various ICP powers.
• All the AZO thin films are oriented with the c-axis perpendicular to the glass substrates.
• With ICP power increased, carrier concentration, mobility showed trend of increase.
• Electrical resistivity of the AZO thin film decreased.
• The lowest resistivity was 1.9 × 10− 3 Ω cm at room temperature.

ZnO:Al (AZO) thin films have been deposited on glass substrates using a low plasma damage facing target sputtering (FTS) system with inductively coupled plasma (ICP) at low processing temperature. In the FTS system adopted in this study, the substrate is much less thermally damaged by impinging high-energy particles due to the confining magnetic field between two facing magnetron sources. ICP was used to increase plasma density with ICP power change.All the samples have a highly preferred orientation of the c-axis perpendicular to the glass substrate. Structure and electrical properties were investigated as a function of ICP power. To monitor the process condition, the change in the substrate temperature was monitored and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) was performed. Grain size and crystallization were changed with ICP power. Grain size was 18.38–21.26 nm under working pressure 3 × 10− 3 Torr, Ar 160 sccm and H2 0.8 sccm. Sheet resistance decreased from 4.6 × 103 Ω/□ to 1.9 × 102 Ω/□ with the ICP power. And electrical resistivity of 1.9 × 10− 3 Ω cm measured by Hall measurement was obtained at ICP power of 500 W.Addition of ICP into FTS system improves the properties of AZO thin films. And it can be a promising technology to fabricated high quality AZO films.