A Brief Study of Physical Properties of Rf Magnetron Sputtered Azo Thin Films

We reported the physical properties of undoped and Aluminium doped ZnO (AZO) thin films that were synthesized by the RF magnetron sputtering method on a quartz substrate. The effect of dopant concentration on structure, morphology, optical and electrical properties of the thin films have been studied systematically by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, AFM, FE-SEM, UV-VIS spectroscopy and I-V measurement (two probe method) respectively. The crystallite growth of the thin films is along c-axis (002) orientations with hexagonal wurtzite structure. The crystallinity is enhanced in the 1%AZO thin films as compared to undoped ZnO. The transition of stress value after introducing the dopant is discussed. These changes are further correlated with the observed morphological changes. The alteration in optical transmission and optical band gap is also discussed extensively. For the AZO (1% and 2%) thin films the n-type conductivity and ohmic nature measured by using Keithley two probe set up. The responsible mechanism for improved conductivity is discussed. In the FTIR spectrum the peaks originated by the tetrahedral coordination of ZnO are observed which further confirms the wurtzite structure of the deposited thin film sample that are recorded by the XRD pattern.