Effect of substrate temperature on the structure, electrical and optical properties of Mo doped ZnO films

Highlights: • MZO thin films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering from ZnO target and DC magnetron sputtering from Mo target. • All films are polycrystalline with preferential c-axis growth. • The various properties of films fabricated at varied substrate temperature have been studied. • The valence of the Mo ions in the ZnO matrix is mixture of +5 and +6. - Abstract: Mo-doped ZnO (MZO) transparent conductive thin films were prepared on glass substrate under various substrate temperature from 50 °C to 200 °C. The microstructural, electrical and optical properties of the MZO films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Hall effect and UV–vis spectrophotometer. Based on XRD measurements, all films are polycrystalline with preferential c-axis growth. The lowest resistivity was obtained to be 2.8 × 10⁻³ Ω·cm. According to X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement, the valence of the Mo ions in the ZnO matrix is a mixture of +5 and +6. In addition, the transmittance of the film is ∼80% throughout the visible light region. Our results indicate that the MZO films are suitable for potential transparent optoelectronic applications.