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The influence of an obstacle placed in the ablation plasma on the properties of oxide thin films

F. GHERENDI1

Affiliation

  1. National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics (NILPRP), Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion Laboratory, L 22, P.O. Box MG-36, 077125, Magurele-Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

Indium oxide and zinc oxide thin films were grown by pulsed electron beam deposition on glass, in pure oxygen at room temperature, using a 10mm width metal strip as mechanical obstacle in the path of the ablation plasma plume, placed at 17 mm from the substrate. The electrical and optical properties of these thin films grown in the shadow of the obstacle and near it were studied comparatively. The spatial profile of the resistivity across the obstacle shadow was measured using the 2 and 4 probes techniques. The In2O3 film has a high resistivity (~2x103 Ω·cm) in the center of the obstacle shadow, while the adjacent regions have low resistivities (~6x10-4 Ω·cm). A smaller, but still significant increase of resistivity behind the obstacle was observed for ZnO films (~0.6 Ω·cm vs. ~6x10-3 Ω·cm in the adjacent regions). The increase of resistivity is explained by an additional incorporation of oxygen atoms from the working gas in the film grown behind the obstacle. Optical transmission measurements showed good transparency with an increase of the absorption coefficient in the film region grown behind the obstacle, accompanied by a slight decrease of the band gap determined from the Tauc plot..

Keywords

Transparent conducting oxides, Thin films, Resistivity, Shadow mask, Ablation, Pulsed electron beam deposition.

Submitted at: Oct. 16, 2013
Accepted at: Nov. 7, 2013

Citation

F. GHERENDI, The influence of an obstacle placed in the ablation plasma on the properties of oxide thin films, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 15, Iss. 11-12, pp. 1463-1469 (2013)