Influence of working pressure on the crystallinity and growth behavior of ZnO films deposited by reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering

Using the reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering method, ZnO films were deposited on Si (001) and quartz substrates at different pressures with a fixed flow ratio of Ar to O2. The influence of working pressure on the crystallinity and growth behavior were studied with the help of characterization of the morphology, microstructure and optical properties of the films by atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and transmittance spectra,respectively. It is found that a critical working pressure can be taken as 0.5—1.0 Pa. With increasing the working pressure from 0.1 Pa up to the critical working pressure, the density of ZnO grains decreases and the films have high c-axis orientation with strong in-plane textured feature. When the working pressure exceeds the critical working pressure, the density of ZnO grains is roughtly a constant and the in-plane textured feature disappears. The influence of working pressure on the refractive index, extinction coefficient and optical energy gap is also discussed in the paper.