Thickness dependence of crystalline structure of Al-doped ZnO thin films deposited by spray pyrolysis

In this work, we have investigated the influence of thickness on crystalline structure of Al-doped ZnO films. Transparent conducting oxide films were grown by the spray pyrolysis technique from precursors prepared via the sol-gel method. We determined the structural properties of the films by perfor...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Garces Pineda, Felipe Andres, Budini, Nicolas, Arce, Roberto Delio, Schmidt, Javier Alejandro
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2015
Country:Argentina
Institution:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repository:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/4398
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/4398
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Mosaicity
Sol Gel
Thin Film
Zinc Oxides
Stress
Electrical Properties
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Description
Summary:In this work, we have investigated the influence of thickness on crystalline structure of Al-doped ZnO films. Transparent conducting oxide films were grown by the spray pyrolysis technique from precursors prepared via the sol-gel method. We determined the structural properties of the films by performing X-ray diffraction and mosaicity measurements, which evidenced an increase of disorder and inhomogeneity between crystalline domains as the films thickened. This behavior was attributed to plastic deformation of the films as their thickness increased. Disorder is usually caused by internal stress in the crystalline structure of the film, which is due to diverse factors such as lattice and thermal mismatches between substrate and sample, postdeposition heat treatments, film growth parameters, film thickness, etc. Although there are several reports concerning stress-induced optical and electrical fluctuations of ZnO films, due to annealing or deposition processes, different substrates types and doping, the thickness dependence of structural characteristics is scarcely reported.