Room-temperature fabrication of highly transparent conductive aluminum-doped zinc oxide films

Room temperature fabricated aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) films were deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering under pure Ar ambient. By investigating and controlling the sputtering parameters, such as relative position between target and substrate, and working pressure, high quality ZnO:Al films were obtained. Even without substrate heating during deposition or post annealing process, we were able to fabricate ZnO:Al films on glass and polymer substrate with resistivity in the order of magnitude of 1 × 10^-4 ohm-cm and average transmittance over 90% in the visible light region. This indicates that such room temperature fabrication process could obtain high quality ZnO:Al films without thermal degradation and suitable for the application of flexible electronics on temperature sensitive polymer substrates.