The effect of substrate temperature on atomic layer deposited zinc tin oxide

• Zinc tin oxide thin films were deposited by atomic layer deposition.
• The structure and optical properties were studied at different growth temperatures.
• The growth temperature had only a small effect on the composition of the films.
• Small ZnO or ZnO(Sn) crystallites were observed by TEM in zinc rich ZTO films.
• The growth temperature affects the crystallite size, which influences the band gap.

Zinc tin oxide (ZTO) thin films were deposited on glass substrates by atomic layer deposition (ALD), and the film properties were investigated for varying deposition temperatures in the range of 90 to 180 °C. It was found that the [Sn]/([Sn] + [Zn]) composition is only slightly temperature dependent, while properties such as growth rate, film density, material structure and band gap are more strongly affected. The growth rate dependence on deposition temperature varies with the relative number of zinc or tin containing precursor pulses and it correlates with the growth rate behavior of pure ZnO and SnOx ALD. In contrast to the pure ZnO phase, the density of the mixed ZTO films is found to depend on the deposition temperature and it increases linearly with about 1 g/cm3 in total over the investigated range. Characterization by transmission electron microscopy suggests that zinc rich ZTO films contain small (~ 10 nm) ZnO or ZnO(Sn) crystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix, and that these crystallites increase in size with increasing zinc content and deposition temperature. These crystallites are small enough for quantum confinement effects to reduce the optical band gap of the ZTO films as they grow in size with increasing deposition temperature.