Influence of Oxygen Flow Rate on Sputter Deposition Rate and SEM Image of Copper Oxide Thin Films

Nayan Nafarizal,Zakaria Ammar,Mohd Khairul Ahmad,Mohd Zain Ahmad Faizal,Mohd Zainizan Sahdan,Ali Yeon Md Shakaff,Jia Wei Low

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.773-774.711

Abstract

Recently, copper oxide thin film has been studied because of its low cost, sensitivity to ambient condition and easiness to produce oxide thin film. It is one of the p-type semiconductor oxides materials that are suitable to be used as gas sensing material. In order to improve the sensitivity and to optimize the properties of copper oxide thin film, it is essential to study the physical structure of copper oxide. In current studies, copper oxide thin film has been deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at different substrate bias voltages and oxygen flow rates. The results reveal that the deposition rate decreased when the oxygen flow rate above 4 sccm. SEM image reveal that nanostructure copper oxide was also obtained when the oxygen flow rate was above 4 sccm. On the other hand, no significant effect on the substrate bias voltage toward the sputter deposition rate was observed.

Highlights

Copper oxide thin film is one of the promising candidates to replace the rare and expensive material such as SnO2 and In2O3 for applications such as dye sensitized solar cell, photo catalysis, photo chromic devices and gas sensing devices [1]–[4]
We report the investigation on the deposition rate and physical characteristic of the copper oxide thin film deposited by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering at different substrate bias voltages and oxygen flow rates
The thickness, grain size, and surface morphology of sputtered copper oxide thin films were observed by field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM)

Summary

Introduction

Copper oxide thin film is one of the promising candidates to replace the rare and expensive material such as SnO2 and In2O3 for applications such as dye sensitized solar cell, photo catalysis, photo chromic devices and gas sensing devices [1]–[4]. RF magnetron sputtering is a potential method to deposition of copper oxide thin film with high deposition rates and uniformity [10]. The characteristic of the deposited thin film are influenced by the deposition parameter such as oxygen flow ratio, sputtering power, working pressure, deposition time and substrate bias voltage. We report the investigation on the deposition rate and physical characteristic of the copper oxide thin film deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at different substrate bias voltages and oxygen flow rates.

Results

Conclusion