Morphology and structure evolution of tin-doped indium oxide thin films deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering: The role of the sputtering atmosphere

作者：Nie Man^*; Mete Tayfun; Ellmer Klaus

来源：Journal of Applied Physics, 2014, 115(15): 154905.

DOI：10.1063/1.4871810

The microstructure and morphology evolution of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) thin films deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering in different sputtering atmospheres were investigated by X-ray diffraction, X-ray reflectivity, and atomic force microscopy. The surface roughness w increases with increasing film thickness d(f), and exhibits a power law behavior w similar to d(f)(beta). The roughness decreases with increasing O-2 flow, while it increases with increasing H-2 flow. The growth exponent beta is found to be 0.35, 0.75, and 0.98 for depositions in Ar/10%O-2, pure Ar, and Ar/10%H-2 atmospheres, respectively. The correlation length xi increases with film thickness also with a power law according to xi similar to d(f)(z) with exponents z = 0.36, 0.44, and 0.57 for these three different gas atmospheres, respectively. A combination of local and non-local growth modes in 2 + 1 dimensions is discussed for the ITO growth in this work.

• 出版日期2014-4-21