Thermal stability of ZnO thin films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition

This paper shows the results of investigation of stability of resistivity of polycrystalline and nanocrystalline ZnO thin films obtained by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) under thermal cycling in the range from 30 degrees C to 300 degrees C. The results show that stability of resistivity during thermal cycling depends on PLD modes, post-growth annealing, and composition of the target used in PLD process. It was established that increasing annealing temperature to 750 degrees C allows fabricating ZnO thin films with high stability of temperature-resistivity dependence. The films obtained by ablation of ZnO target with post-growth annealing in oxygen (annealing temperature 750 degrees C, 10 h) possess better stability parameter (R-stab = 0.99), which proves the possibility of formation of ZnO thin films with high stability of temperature-resistivity dependence under thermal cycling.