To establish low-temperature process conditions, process-property correlation has been investigated for Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) thin films deposited by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering. Thickness of GZO films and deposition temperature were varied from 50 to 500 nm and from room temperature to 250 oC, respectively. Electrical properties of the GZO films initially improved with increase of temperature to 150 oC, but deteriorated subsequently with further increase of the temperature. At lower temperatures, the electrical properties improved with increasing thickness; however, at higher temperatures, increasing thickness resulted in deteriorated electrical properties. Such changes in electrical properties were correlated to the microstructural evolution, which is dependent on the deposition temperature and the film thickness. While the GZO films had c-axis preferred orientation due to preferred nucleation, structural disordering with increasing deposition temperature and film thickness promoted grain growth with a-axis orientation. Consequently, it was possible to obtain a good electrical property at relatively low deposition temperature with small thickness.

• Dongkeun Cheon(School of Materials Science and Engineering, Changwon National University, 20 Changwondaehak-ro, Changwon, Gyeongnam 51140, Republic of Korea)
• Kyung-Jun Ahn(SNTEK Co. Ltd., 1433-100 Seobu-ro, Suwon, Gyeonggi 16643, Republic of Korea)
• Woong Lee(School of Materials Science and Engineering, Changwon National University, 20 Changwondaehak-ro, Changwon, Gyeongnam 51140, Republic of Korea) Corresponding author