Fabrication and characterization of transparent conducting titanium-zinc oxide nanostructured thin films

Nano transparent conducting titanium-zinc oxide（Ti-Zn O） thin films were prepared on glass substrates by radio frequency（RF） magnetron sputtering technique. The deposited films are characterized by X-ray diffraction（XRD）, four-probe meter and UV-visible spectrophotometer. The effects of Ti-doping content on the structural, optical and electrical properties of the films are investigated. The XRD results show that the obtained films are polycrystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and preferentially oriented in the（002） crystallographic direction. The structural and optoelectronic characteristics of the deposited films are subjected to the Ti-doping content. The Ti-Zn O sample fabricated with the Ti-doping content of 3%（weight percentage） possesses the best crystallinity and optoelectronic performance, with the highest degree of preferred（002） orientation of 99.87%, the largest crystallite size of 83.2 nm, the minimum lattice strain of 6.263×10-4, the highest average visible transmittance of 88.8%, the lowest resistivity of 1.18×10-3 Ω·cm and the maximum figure of merit（FOM） of 7.08×103 Ω-1·cm-1. Furthermore, the optical bandgaps of the films are evaluated by extrapolation method and observed to be an increasing tendency with the increase of the Ti-doping content.