Effect of growth parameters on surface morphology of sputtered zinc antimonides thin films

Abstract

The growth and characterization of nanostructured zinc antimonides (Zn4Sb3) thin films are reported in this work. The nanostructured Zn4Sb3 thin films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering using a single sputtering target made from a stoichiometric Zn4Sb3. The range of growth parameters were determined for substrate temperature (50oC – 150oC), deposition time (600 s – 1200 s), argon flow rate (5 mL min-1 – 20 mL min-1) and RF power (50 W – 125 W). The effects of manipulated growth parameters on surface morphology were investigated. XRD, EDX, FESEM and AFM were utilized to characterize the deposited thin films. Zn and Sb peaks are not reflected in the XRD spectra. The spectra also show that the deposited thin films are in amorphous form. Due to limitation on capturing the appearance of element Zn and Sb, EDX characterization was performed. It was confirmed that the deposited thin films contain Zn and Sb elements based on EDX analyses. Based on FESEM analyses, grain size and thickness of deposited thin films were captured between –11 nm – 15 nm and – 45 nm – 60 nm, respectively. AFM analyses showed that the variation of growth parameters have strong influence on the formation of the nanostructured thin films. It was found that the grain diameter, average roughness and grain density of the deposited thin films obtained were in the range 19.85 nm – 43.07 nm, 1.997 × 10-2 nm – 14.877 × 10-2 nm and 3.942 × 1010 cm-2 – 11.691 × 1010 cm-2, respectively.