Effects of additional oxygen flow on the optical and electrical properties of ion beam sputtering deposited molybdenum-doped zinc oxide layer

Abstract

The transparent conductive molybdenum-doped zinc oxide (MZO) was deposited onto a flexible polyethersulfone (PES) substrate by using an ion beam sputtering system. An argon ion beam was used to sputter an MZO target at constant pressure of 0.67Pa and substrate temperature of 130°C with varying the oxygen flow rate from 0 to 12sccm. The influences of additional oxygen flow on the microstructure, optical, and electrical properties of films were investigated. The obtained MZO films present a crystalline structure. With increasing the oxygen flow rate, their electrical resistivity increases, and the optical band gap decreases from 3.46 to 3.20eV. The film deposited in the atmosphere without introducing oxygen exhibits the best optical transmittance of 82.9 at 550nm wavelength, electrical resistivity of 8.32 × 10 -3 cm, carrier concentration of 6.82 × 10 20cm -3, and carrier mobility of 2.45cm 2/Vs. Copyright © 2012 Chin-Chiuan Kuo et al.