Physical properties of natively textured yttrium doped zinc oxide films by sol-gel

Sol-gel derived yttrium doped ZnO films of various thicknesses have been deposited by the dip coating technique. The investigations of microstructural, electrical and optical properties of post heat-treated films in air as a function of thickness have been made. It is found that high quality films are obtained at an annealing temperature of 550 degrees C. The (002) preferential growth of both the doped and undoped ZnO films changes to (101) as the thickness of the films were increased. The full width at half maximum of (002) X-ray peak decreases with annealing temperature and the lattice constant is found to approach the value of bulk ZnO. Natively textured films have been obtained for film having thickness greater than 0.8 mu m. The thinner films are found to be non-textured with high resistivity. The formation of the textured surface of the film is linked to the suppression of c-axis (002) orientation and the columnar growth in the thick film. (C) 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.