ABSTRACT
The substrate that AZO films were to be deposited on was the borosilicate glass. The AZO films were deposited by one in-line DC magnetron sputtering tool. The ceramic AZO target was with ZnO/ Al2O3 = 98:2 wt% in composition and 95 × 20 cm2 in size. The process pressure was kept at 3 × 10−1 Pa with flowing pure argon into process chamber. The substrate temperature during sputtering process
and after vacuum annealing. The X-ray diffraction spectra for the AZO films before and after vacuum annealing are shown in Figure 1. The (002) peak shifts to a lower angle for the AZO films after vacuum annealing. Vacuum annealing may cause the high proportion of metallic interstitial defects in the lattice of the AZO films [6]. This increases the lattice space which makes (002) peaks shift to a lower angle for the vacuum annealed AZO films. The full width at half maximum of the (002) peak decreases for AZO films after vacuum annealing. It implies the grains of the AZO films grow after vacuum annealing.
