Highly transparent and lower resistivity of yttrium doped ZnO thin films grown on quartz glass by sol–gel method

Abstract We prepared highly transparent yttrium-doped ZnO (YZO) thin films on quartz glass by a sol–gel method, and then annealed them at 600 °C in vacuum. All samples showed hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferential orientation along the (002) direction. We observed the average grain size of Y: 2 at% thin film to be in the range of 15–20 nm. We observed blue shift in the optical bandgap (3.29 eV→3.32 eV) by increasing the Y concentration (0–2 at%), due to increasing the number of electrons, and replacing the di-valent (Zn 2+ ) with tri-valent (Y 3+ ) dopants. Replacing the higher ionic radii (Y 3+ ) with smaller ionic radii (Zn 2+ ) expanded the local volume of the lattice, which reduced the lattice defects, and increased the intensity ratio of NBE/DLE emission (I NBE /I DLE ). We also observed the lowest (172 meV) Urbach energy of Y: 2 at% thin film, and confirmed the high structural quality. Incorporation of the appropriate Y concentration (2 at%) improved the crystallinity of YZO thin films, which led to less carrier scattering and lower resistivity.