Surface morphology and crystalline structure of high-stable polycrystalline transparent conductive zinc oxide films

Surface morphology and crystalline structure of high-stable zinc oxide films were evaluated by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. AFM measurement revealed that the higher stable samples have smaller roughness (average roughness and root mean square) parameters than the lower stable samples. Furthermore, in-plane XRD measurement showed that the crystallite size of high stable samples is smaller than that of the low stable samples. These results indicate that the larger surface area and lower film density deteriorates the stability of zinc oxide films through the adsorption and reaction of water or oxygen molecules. They also suggest that we can prepare the high stable zinc oxide transparent electrode films by controlling the surface morphology.