A study on crystallization, optical and electrical properties of the advanced ZITO thin films using co-sputtering system

Research highlights: Conductor and semiconductor ZITO transparent oxide thin films have been obtained by co-sputtering system. Therefore, we could fabricate a fully transparent ZITO optoelectronic device (thin film transistors or photodetector) in the future. The conducting ZITO was used as the electrode. The active layer of TFTs and photodetector employed the semiconducting ZITO. In addition, the investigation of luminescence characteristics on Zn-In-Sn-O (ZITO) film has never been reported. So, the multi-compound ZITO (ZnO combined ITO) films would be measured by photoluminescence (PL) to analyze the effects of ITO doping and oxygen gas content on emission characteristics of film. - Abstract: Multi-functions (conductor, semiconductor and insulator) ZnInSnO (ZITO) transparent oxide thin films have been obtained by a co-sputtering system using ITO target and ZnO target with oxygen gas contents (0-8%). The ZITO film containing a small ITO content had the lowest resistivity (good electron mobility) and higher optical transmittance. In addition, the influences of thermal treatments (post-annealing and substrate temperature) on electrical properties and optical transmittance of ZITO films were studied. Photoluminescence (PL) of the ZITO film confirmed the contribution of ITO content and oxygen gas content on the photo-emission. The ZITO film with zinc atomic concentration of 58 at.% was a good candidate for TCO material (3.08 x 10-4 Ω cm). Under the substrate temperature of 100 deg. C or post-annealing temperature of 200 oC, the properties of ZITO film could be improved.