Highly oriented and conducting ZnO:Ga layers grown by chemical spray pyrolysis

Highly conducting and transparent gallium doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Ga) layers have been deposited using a spray pyrolysis process. The films were deposited on Corning 7059 glass substrates at different temperatures and gallium doping concentrations, keeping the other deposition parameters constant. The ZnO:Ga films grown at a substrate temperature of 350 °C with a gallium doping concentration of 5.0 at.% had the best physical properties. These layers were highly oriented along the 〈002〉 with a grain size of 98 nm. The films were n-conductivity type with an electrical conductivity of 1.32×103 Ω−1cm−1. The transmittance of these films was higher than 85% in the visible region with a high reflectance in the infra-red region. The figure of merit evaluated was 3.4×10−2 Ω−1.