Impact of Sputtering Pressure on Structural, Optical, Electrical and Morphological Properties of Titanium Doped Zinc Oxide Thin films Using Metallic Target

Abstract

Transparent Titanium Zinc oxide (TZO) thin films with interesting properties have been successfully deposited on silicon and glass substrate by direct current reactive magnetron co-sputtering at room temperature using inexpensive metallic target materials as compared to the high production cost of ceramic target materials. The aim of this work is to study the effects of sputtering pressure on crystallinity, surface morphology, electrical and optical properties of the films, for that a variety of characterization techniques are used. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that films are highly crystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure, the microstructure of the films was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer (EDS) confirmed the existence of Zn, O and Ti in the deposited films. The electrical resistivity and the transmittance of the films were measured using four point probe method and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer (UV-Vis) respectively. The film deposited at 1Pa showed the lowest electrical resistivity of 1.45∙10 – 3 Ώ ∙ cm and a very high transmittance above 90 %, it is therefore a good candidate for it application as transparent electrodes in photovoltaic cells.