Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1671614 | Thin Solid Films | 2007 | 5 Pages |
Abstract
Evaporation of Ag in the presence of an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) oxygen plasma was used to deposit Ag2âxO films with a range of stoichiometries onto r-plane sapphire substrates. A quartz crystal oscillator (QCO) was used to accurately measure the silver and oxygen arrival rates and establish the O/Ag flux ratio needed to produce films with nominal Ag2O stoichiometry. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicates that the Ag2âxO films are not single phase but contain signatures of coexisting Ag2O and AgO components. XRD shows that the lattice matching with the r-plane sapphire substrate causes the Ag2O phase to grow with <002> heteroepitaxial crystallites coexisting with crystallites having <111> normal and random in-plane orientation. The AgO phase also forms with crystallites having <002> heteroepitaxy as well as crystallites with <111> normal and random in-plane orientation. The mixed phase Ag2âxO films exhibit approximately 77% optical transmission over the visible range (500 nm to 700 nm) and have a single absorption edge near 3.3 eV. Four-point van der Pauw conductivity and Hall effect measurements indicate that the Ag2âxO films are p-type with a conductivity on the order of 3 Ã 10â 3 Ωâ 1 cmâ 1.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Authors
S.B. Rivers, G. Bernhardt, M.W. Wright, D.J. Frankel, M.M. Steeves, R.J. Lad,