Preparation And Modification Of Transparent Conductive Aluminium Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films And Their Self-cleaning Property

AZO thin film is a N-type transparent conductive thin film semiconductor with afeature of high transmittance and low resistivity, which is widely used in a various typeof optical instruments. With the rapid development of the various functions of materialsand the influence of the Lotus Effect, it is necessary for AZO thin film to be studied onits self-cleaning properties, on the basis of maintaining its transparent conductiveproperties.Sol-gel method and magnetron sputtering were used to prepare AZO film in thispaper. The as-prepared AZO film was transparent, conductive and self-cleaning as aconsequence of chemical etching and surface modification. This experiment study thestructure and shape of AZO film’s surface with XRD, SEM, AFM and so on. Besides,its optical performance and self-cleaning property are measured by UV-Visspectrophotometer, four-probe tester, contact angle tester etc. The relation between theshape of the film’s surface and its optional performance, as well as its self-cleaningproperties was also discussed.When it is made by Sol-gel method and its film is pulled to12layers, AZO thinfilm reached its optimal performance with the average transmittance of about87%andsurface resistance of3.56×10~3Ω/sq. The film’s thickness is665nm with surface particlesize uniform, clear grain boundary and its root mean square roughness is only1.63nm.The result showed that the self-cleaning AZO film reaches the best overallperformance, when the etching concentration is0.5%, and the etching time is20s duringthe etching process. At this time, the contact angle size is147.43°, the surfaceresistance is6.76×10~3Ω/sq, average visible light transmittance is about80%, and theroot mean square roughness is68.26nm.RF magnetron sputtering method is used to prepare AZO transparent conductivefilm, when the power is200W. The average transmittance of the AZO film is about80%,the surface resistance is0.55×10~3Ω/sq, The thickness of AZO film is about580nm. Thefilm shows surface particle size uniformity and grain clear boundaries. The root meansquare roughness is only2.13nm. When the etching time is30s, the other parametersremain the same, the contact angle size is138.90°, the surface resistance of1.97×10~3Ω/sq, average visible light transmittance of about72%, the root mean squareroughness is82.08nm.