Evaluation of the structural, optical and electrical properties of AZO thin films prepared by chemical bath deposition for optoelectronics

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films for electrode applications were deposited on glass substrates using chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The influence of deposition time on the structural, morphological, and opto-electrical properties of AZO films were investigated. Structural studies confirmed that all the deposited films were hexagonal wurtzite structure with polycrystalline nature and exhibited (002) preferential orientation. There is no other impurity phases were detected for different deposition time. Surface morphological images shows the spherically shaped grains are uniformly arranged on to the entire film surface. The EDS spectrum confirms the presence of Zn, O and Al elements in deposited AZO film. The observed optical transmittance is high (87%) in the visible region, and the calculated band gap value is 3.27 eV. In this study, the transmittance value is decreased with increasing deposition time. The room temperature PL spectrum exposed that AZO thin film deposited at (60 min) has good optical quality with less defect density. The minimum electrical resistivity and maximum carrier concentration values were observed as 8.53 x 10(-3)(Omega cm) and 3.53 x 10(18) cm(-3) for 60 min deposited film, respectively. The obtained figure of merit (phi) value 3.05 x 10(-3) (Omega/sq)(-1) is suggested for an optoelectronic device. (c) 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.