Investigation of Transparent Conductive Oxide Films Deposited by Co-sputtering of ITO and AZO

Transparent conducting thin films of indium tin oxide(ITO) co-sputtered with aluminum-doped zinc oxide(AZO) were deposited on glass substrate by dual magnetron sputtering. It was found that the electrical properties and structural characteristics of the films are significantly changed according to the sputtering power of the AZO target. The IAZTO film prepared with D.C power of ITO at 100 W and R.F power of AZO at 50 W shows an electrical resistivity of and a sheet resistance of (for 150 nm thick). Besides of the improvement of the electrical properties, compared to the ITO films deposited at the same process conditions, the IAZTO films have very smooth surface, which is due to the amorphous nature of the films. However, the electrical conductivity of the IAZTO films was found to be deteriorated along with the crystallization in case of the high temperature deposition (above ). In this work, high quality amorphous transparent conductive oxide layers could be obtained by mixing AZO with ITO, indicating possible use of IAZTO films as the transparent electrodes in OLED and flexible display devices.