Ion mass and energy distributions in the DC magnetron sputtering of AZO from metallic and ceramic targets


Ion mass and energy distributions in the DC magnetron sputtering of AZO from metallic and ceramic targets

Wilde, C.; Cornelius, S.; Vinnichenko, M.

technique to fabricate transparent conductive oxides. Especially in large-scale solar cell production a combination of good electrical and optical properties along with low production costs is of crucial importance. AZO can be sputter-deposited reactively (i.e. with addition of O2) using a metallic target or non-reactively using a ceramic target. On the one hand, non reactive processes are easy to control and they provide high-quality films with high reproducibility, but on the other hand, ceramic Al-doped ZnO targets are much more expensive compared to the metallic ones. Therefore, the understanding of differences between these two techniques is of vital importance for the improvement of process control, stability and, finally, properties of reactively sputtered AZO, especially in large-scale fabrication. In this contribution we report results of systematic comparison of ion mass and energy distributions in magnetron plasma using reactive and non reactive DC process of AZO film growth. The measurements were performed with the orifice of mass-spectrometer facing the magnetron target race track. We present the results of comparison in a broad range of particles’ energy for different deposition conditions with a main focus on high energetic ions and fragments. It is shown that in case of sputtering of ceramic target the ratio of high to low energetic ions is substantially higher than that of metallic target. The contribution from high energetic particle fragments is also more pronounced in that case. Therefore, from point of ion energy distributions, a well established reactive process has a potential to provide better properties for AZO layer.

Keywords: AZO; TCO; mass spectrometry; ion energy distribution; DC magnetron sputtering

  • Poster
    13th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE 2012), 09.-14.09.2012, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Deutschland

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-17813
Publ.-Id: 17813