Sputtering Power Induced Physical Property Variation of Nickel Oxide Films by Radio Frequency Magnetron Sputtering

NiO thin films were deposited on Si and Corning 1737 glass substrates using radio frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering system. The physical properties of NiO films under different sputtering power were thoroughly studied. The XRD results indicated that as-prepared NiO films with the sputtering power above 100 W developed only (200) preferred orientation. The AFM results showed that the NiO films were composed of different-size NiO nano-grains and the grain size increased with increasing the sputtering power. The samples marked A-E under the sputtering power of 80, 100, 120, 140 and 160 W have optical band gap values of 3.70, 3.65, 3.50, 3.45 and 3.44 eV, respectively. Comparatively, the controllable electrical properties of the films could be achieved by the variation of crystal quality arises from the sputtering power.