Erschienen in:
physica status solidi (a), 219 (2022) 7
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.1002/pssa.202100480
ISSN:
1862-6300;
1862-6319
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Beschreibung:
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a low‐cost class of n‐type inorganic semiconductors with a large exciton binding energy (≈60 meV), wide direct bandgap (3.37 eV), and the most important material for various fields of industrial and deep‐tech applications. Herein, a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) temperature compatible (400 °C)‐ integrated circuit (IC) process based on the sol–gel method is described. The properties of aluminum (Al)‐doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were investigated. The Al content, Al/(Al+Zn) ratio, varies from 0 to 10% and exhibits compressive stresses from −4 to −1.8 GPa. At low dopant concentrations, the Al content acts as an electrical dopant, while at higher dopant concentrations, it acts as an impurity. The electrical resistivity, which was only 3 × 10−3 Ω cm, is inversely related to the orientation of the thin film, which was preferably along the (0 0 2) direction. The optical bandgap energy of AZO thin films was determined to be in the range of 3.34–3.87 eV. Herein, a novel method to change the Al content of doped AZO thin films to improve their properties is described, which is suitable for next‐generation flexible, microsystem, and optoelectronic devices.