Thermoelectrically characteristics of ZnO: al films obtained by thermal and magnetron sputtering

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the temperature dependences of the electrical characteristics of a conducting and transparent ZnO: Al film obtained by two methods: thermal sputtering in vacuum and magnetron ion-plasma sputtering. The temperature dependences of the resistivity, the concentration, the mobility of the charge carriers, and the field dependence of the magnetic resistance were measured. It is shown that the aluminum doping of a ZnO film by various sputtering processes leads to a change in the transfer of charge carriers by defects in impurity atoms and the grain boundary, in addition, with increasing impurity concentration, the resistivity of the film remained constant. Measurement by the Seebeck effect showed that the magnetic resistance for all the samples under study is negative and decreases with increasing temperature and an increase in the level of doping. Therefore, the ZnO: Al film is electrically conductive. The absolute value of the magnetic resistance does not exceed 2.5%. Thus, films obtained by magnetron sputtering can be used as a film as an antireflection and stable coating for textured and silicon nanowires.