Annealing Effect of Transparent Conducting GZO Films by Nd:YAG Laser

Abstract

In order to cope with the depletion of iudium, a strong interest has been recently turned to transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films based on a zinc oxide system. Focusing to this theme, it was tried to fabricate Gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) TCO films. But, it was difficult to make good films of GZO at low temperature. Therefore, it was tried to use laser-annealing-method for improved characteristics of GZO films. Approximately 200-nm-thick 5.0 wt.% Ga-doped zinc oxide (GZO: 5.0 wt.% Ga₂O₃) films have been deposited on glass substrates at Room Temperature by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) using the fourth harmonic generation (FHG) of Nd: YAG laser (λ=266 nm). In order to reduce resistivity of as-deposited films, annealing process was carried out by Nd:YAG (FHG) laser with laser energy density of 40 mJ/cm². As a result, the resisivity was improved from 8.16×10^-4 to 6.27×10^-4 Ω·cm (improvement effect of 23.2 %). An average transmittance of more than 85% in the visible region was obtained for the fabricated.