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Flash Lamp Annealing (FLA) of Magnetron Sputtered Low‐Temperature TCO Coatings
Author(s) -
Panckow Andreas N.,
David Clement,
Weber Jörg
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
vakuum in forschung und praxis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.213
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1522-2454
pISSN - 0947-076X
DOI - 10.1002/vipr.201700652
Subject(s) - materials science , sputter deposition , thin film , optoelectronics , sputtering , ceramic , annealing (glass) , electroluminescence , cavity magnetron , substrate (aquarium) , tin , indium tin oxide , aluminium , metallurgy , nanotechnology , layer (electronics) , geology , oceanography
Summary Thin TCO layers, like ITO and AZO, are commonly used in applications where highly conductive and transparent thin film systems are necessary for large area applications such as displays, touch panels, electroluminescent devices, electrochromics, energy efficient window systems and photovoltaics. At present the best ITO and AZO quality is attained with films deposited by means of magnetron sputtering using ceramic targets at substrate temperatures above 200 °C. In this study have been investigated TCO films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering from a rotary indium‐tin target, ITO films sputtered from ceramic target and reactively sputter deposited AZO films from zinc‐aluminium targets, respectively. A promising approach to improve the properties of TCO films sputtered at low substrate temperatures is the application of post‐growth treatment by flash lamp annealing. This has been applied for ITO and AZO samples that have been deposited at various temperatures and oxygen partial pressures.