Characterization of ZnO thin films deposited on diamond-like carbon coated onto Si and SiO2/Si substrate

Polycrystalline piezoelectric ZnO thin films are deposited using RF magnetron sputtering on different substrate materials including SiO2/Si(1 0 0) and diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated on silicon substrates from target ZnO. The effect of substrate temperature, RF power, Ar/O2 ratio on structure, grain size, micro-morphology and full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of ZnO thin film has been discussed. According to the peak angles shifting towards the powder value at different deposited condition, the film stress has been calculated. The result shows that the compressive stress of ZnO film decreases with increase of substrate temperature and it is smallest with increase of deposited power. The ZnO film which has pillar crystal structures has been obtained which is deposited on both the SiO2/Si and the DLC/Si substrates.