Air annealing effects on the optical properties of ZnO–SnO2 thin films deposited by a filtered vacuum arc deposition system

Abstract

ZnO–SnO2 transparent and conducting thin films were deposited on microscope glass substrates by a filtered vacuum arc deposition (FVAD) system. The cathode was prepared with 50%:50% atomic concentration of Zn:Sn. The films were annealed in air at 500 °C for 1 h. Structural and compositional analyses were obtained using XRD and XPS diagnostics. X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that as-deposited and air-annealed thin ZnO–SnO2 films were amorphous. The atomic ratio of Zn to Sn in the film obtained using the 50%:50% cathode as determined by XPS analysis was ∼2.7:1 in the bulk film. The optical properties were determined from normal incidence transmission measurements. Film transmission in the visible was 70% to 90%, affected by interference effects. Annealed films did not show higher transmission in the VIS compared to as-deposited films. Assuming that the interband electron transition is direct, the optical band gap was found to be in the range 3.34–3.61 eV for both as-deposited and annealed films. However, the average Eg for annealed films was 3.6 eV, larger by 0.2 eV than that of as-deposited. The refractive index n increased while the extinction index k decreased significantly with annealing.