Effects of parameters on the performance of amorphous IGZO thin films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering

Amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) transparent conductive thin films are prepared on glass substrates by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The effects of seven factors, which are substrate temperature, sputtering atmosphere, working pressure, sputtering power, annealing temperature, negative bias voltage and sputtering time, on Hall mobility, transmittance and surface roughness are studied through orthogonal experiments. The results show that the effects of working pressure, substrate temperature and sputtering atmosphere on performance of films are the most prominent. According to the experimental results and discussion, relatively reasonable process parameters are obtained, which are working pressure of 0.35 Pa, substrate temperature of 200 °C, sputtering atmosphere of Ar, sputtering power of 125 W, sputtering time of 30 min, negative bias voltage of 0 V and annealing temperature of 300 °C. © 2014 Tianjin University of Technology and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.