Optical and structural properties of ZnO thin films fabricated by using oblique angle deposition

In this paper, we report the optical and the structural properties of ZnO thin films deposited by using radio-frequency magnetron sputtering with an oblique angle deposition (OAD) technique. The effect of deposition angle on the refractive index and the in-plane birefringence were studied. With increasing deposition angle, the refractive index decreases, and the in-plane birefringence increases. The in-plane birefringence reaches its maximum value of 0.061 at a deposition angle of 60 .deg. and then decreases with further increase of the deposition angle. The microstructure and the morphology were also investigated by using a scanning electron microscope (SEM).