Study on the adhesive mechanism between the Ga doped ZnO thin film and the polycarbonate substrate

Abstract The Ga doped ZnO (GZO) film was deposited on the polymer substrate at room temperature by magnetron sputtering. The resistivity is 8.9×10 −4  Ω cm. The average transmittance in the visible region is over 85%. According to the resistivity and transmittance in the visible light, it is obtained that the film exhibits excellent electrical and optical properties, which satisfies the application for optoelectronic devices. However, the adhesion between the film and the polymer substrate is very weak. In order to figure out the reason of the weak adhesion, we study the adhesive mechanism between the GZO film and the polymer substrate through using depth profiling XPS method, residual stress test, and SIMS method for the first time. The residual stress of the film is a compressive stress. According to the SIMS results, an element diffusion exists at the interface. However, according to the depth profiling XPS results, there is no chemical bonding between the GZO film and the polymer substrate.