Residual stress and texture in Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide layers deposited by reactive radio frequency magnetron sputtering

•Al doped ZnO thin films were obtained by reactive radio frequency magnetron sputtering.•Correlation of stresses and texture with electrical and optical properties is shown.•Homogeneous and stress-free thin-films are the best performing ones.•XANES confirmed the doping mechanism and excluded some spurious phases.

Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide thin films were deposited on standard soda-lime substrates by reactive radio frequency magnetron sputtering. Residual stress and texture were studied by X-ray diffraction, while X-ray Absorption Near Edge Spectroscopy provided information on the Al environment in the best performing thin films. The influence of deposition parameters on structural and microstructural properties is discussed. A correlation between microstructure and residual stress state with electrical and optical properties is proposed.