Abstract
Continuous composition spread (CCS) methods allow fast and economic exploration of composition dependent properties of multielement compounds. Here, a CCS method was applied for room temperature pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of amorphous zinc-tin-oxide to gain detailed insight into the influence of the zinc-to-tin cation ratio on optical and electrical properties of this ternary compound. Our CCS approach for a large-area offset PLD process utilizes a segmented target and thus makes target exchange or movable masks in the PLD chamber obsolete. Cation concentrations of 0.08-0.82 Zn/(Zn + Sn) were achieved across single 50 × 50 mm(2) glass substrates. The electrical conductivity increases for increasing tin content, and the absorption edge shifts to lower energies. The free carrier concentration can be tuned from 10(20) to 10(16) cm(-3) by variation of the cation ratio from 0.1 to 0.5 Zn/(Zn + Sn).
Highlights
Investigation of the influence of different compositions of multielement compounds on material properties is of high scientific and technological relevance
A Continuous composition spread (CCS) method was applied for room temperature pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of amorphous zinc-tin-oxide to gain detailed insight into the influence of the zinc-to-tin cation ratio on optical and electrical properties of this ternary compound
We present amorphous ZTO thin films prepared at room temperature (RT) by a CCS-PLD approach
Summary
Investigation of the influence of different compositions of multielement compounds on material properties is of high scientific and technological relevance. Several AOSs have been proposed as candidates for transparent electronic devices, such as pixel drivers.[12] One promising material is amorphous zinc-tin-oxide (ZTO), which consists of only naturally abundant and nontoxic elements and combines the stability of SnO2 against acids and bases with the stability of ZnO against activated hydrogen environments.[13−17] It belongs to the group of heavy cation compound materials described by Hosono et al in 1996, which exhibit a comparably high electron mobility even in the amorphous phase.[18] This high mobility can be ascribed to the spatial overlap of the large, spherically symmetric metal s orbitals and their insensitivity to variations of the bonding angle that occurs in amorphous materials.[18,19] they can be deposited at room temperature, which enables cost-efficient deposition and growth on flexible substrates. The absorption edge exhibits a blue shift with increasing zinc content
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