Investigation of the biaxial stress of Al-doped ZnO thin films on a flexible substrate with RF magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Transparent conductive Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were deposited onto poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrate, using the radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method. The residual stress of flexible electronics was investigated by a double beam shadow moiré interferometer with phase shifting interferometry (PSI). Moreover, the biaxial stress of AZO thin films can be graphically represented by using Mohr’s circle of stress. The residual stress of AZO thin films becomes more compressive with the increase in sputtering power. The maximum residual stress is −1115.74 MPa, and the shearing stress is 490.57 MPa at a sputtering power of 200 W. The trends of residual stress were evidenced by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and optical properties of AZO thin films. According to the evaluation results of the refractive index and the extinction coefficient, the AZO thin films have better quality when the sputtering power less than 100 W.