Studies on sputtered ZnO:CdO thin films for TCO application

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) and cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films were studied for their electrical and optical properties for transparent conducing oxides (TCO) application. Using zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) as targets, ZnO and CdO thin films were deposited and also ZnO:CdO thin film samples were co-deposited on to the glass substrates by reactive direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering. X-ray diffraction (XRD patterns of ZnO and CdO films showed the diffraction planes corresponding to ZnO (002) and CdO (200) respectively. The optical band gap of the films varied between 2.5 - 3.2 eV as determined by UV-VIS spectrophotometry. The films exhibited Ohmic behaviour.