Deposition of Polycrystalline ZnO Films by Two-Step Method and Characterization of Thermal Annealing Effects

Abstract : Polycrystalline ZnO thin films were deposited on SiO2/Si(100) substrate using RF magnetron sputtering. The film deposition performed in this work was composed of following two procedures; the 1st deposition for 30 min without oxygen at 100 W and the 2nd deposition with oxygen in the range O2(Ar+O2) = 10 ^ 50 %. Deposited ZnO films revealed a strongly c-axis preferred-orientation (the corresponding texture coefficient ^100 %) as well as a high resistivity (> 10 (exp 7) Ohm cm). It was also observed that the crystallite size of ZnO was noticeably increased by thermal-annealing.