Study of the properties of n+-type ZnO:Al films obtained from ZnO/Al/ZnO nanometric structure

The characterizations results of n⁺-type ZnO:Al films obtained by the fabrication process of ZnO/Al/ZnO nanometric structure are presented. ZnO films were deposited by DC reactive sputtering on corning glass substrates and the Aluminum (Al) metallic film was deposited by vacuum evaporation. The electrical resistivity, electron concentration and carrier mobility of n⁺-type ZnO:Al films are 2.85×10^-3 Ω-cm, 7.14 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3 and 9.86 cm²/V-s, respectively. The characterization by X-ray diffraction shows that n⁺-type ZnO:Al films are nanocrystalline with preferred orientation and grain size of ~9 nm. The films have 80 % of transmittance at the wavelength of 500 nm, with bandgap of 3.2 eV. In addition to these properties, the figure of merit of the films is 2240 Ω^-1cm^-1. The electrical, structural and optical properties of the films are useful for the manufacture of electroluminescent devices or transparent electrode layers.