Growth and Characterization of Cobalt Doped Indium Oxide Thin Films

Date of Graduation

Fall 2007

Degree

Master of Science in Materials Science

Department

Physics, Astronomy, and Materials Science

Committee Chair

Pawan Kahol

Abstract

Transparent electrodes, antireflective coatings, display devices, and photo-thermal devices are some applications of the transparent and conductive indium oxide films. Indium oxide this films are non-stoichiometric semiconductors with a band gap of approximately 3.6 eV, highly transparent in the visible region, and have low n-type resistivity. In this work, high quality thin films were deposited on quartz substrate using the Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. The effect of oxygen partial pressure and growth temperature on In ₁₋xCoxO (x=0.02) thin films were studied using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), UV-Visible spectroscopy and Magneto- Transport techniques. XRD and Raman spectra confirm the epitaxial growth, while AFM reveals surface information about the films. The optical properties of the as-deposited films were also examined by UV-Visible spectroscopy. The thickness of these films is on the order of 100 nm. The resistivity of these films is in the range 10⁻⁴-10⁻³ cm. The carrier concentration is about 1 x 10 ²¹ cm ⁻³ and maximum mobility is 71 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. The optical transparency of the deposited films is about 82% in the visible region.

Keywords

semiconductors, transparent conducting oxide, pulse laser deposition, indium oxide, opto-electronic properties

Subject Categories

Materials Science and Engineering

Copyright

© Naveen Kumar Mamidi

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Dissertation/Thesis

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