Abstract
In this study, the effect of radical intensity on the deposition mechanism, optical, and electrical properties of tin oxide (SnO2) thin films is investigated. The SnO2 thin films are prepared by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition with different plasma power from 1000 to 3000 W. The experimental results show that plasma contains different amount of argon radicals (Ar*) and oxygen radicals (O*) with the increased power. The three deposition mechanisms are indicated by the variation of Ar* and O* intensities evidenced by optical emission spectroscopy. The adequate intensities of Ar* and O* are obtained by the power of 1500 W, inducing the highest oxygen vacancies (OV) ratio, the narrowest band gap, and the densest film structure. The refractive index and optical loss increase with the plasma power, possibly owing to the increased film density. According to the Hall effect measurement results, the improved plasma power from 1000 to 1500 W enhances the carrier concentration due to the enlargement of OV ratio, while the plasma powers higher than 1500 W further cause the removal of OV and the significant bombardment from Ar*, leading to the increase of resistivity.
Highlights
Comparable to what has been accomplished for atomic layer deposition (ALD), the challenge for plasma-enhanced ALD (PEALD) regards the effects of plasma radicals on the deposition mechanism and the quality of deposited SnO2 thin films
The SnO2 thin films with high-quality are prepared by PEALD with
The radical intensity obtained by OES mainly affects the bond breaking of precursors and the arrangement of Sn and O atoms, suggesting that the argon gas (Ar)* intensity increases with increasing plasma power to induce the increase of O* intensity and even the Ar* bombardment
Summary
There are abundant techniques to prepare the SnO2 thin films, including magnetron sputter deposition (MSD) [1,2,3,4], thermal evaporation [5], spray pyrolysis deposition [6,7], sol–gel process [8,9,10,11], and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [12,13,14,15] These technologies still have many shortcomings such as poor coverage, presence of pinholes, and the uncontrolled defects. With the development of plasma assistance for the deposition, there are an increasing number of articles about high-quality
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