Metal β-diketoiminate precursor use in aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition of gallium- and aluminium-doped zinc oxide.

Aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) has been used to deposit thin films of ZnO from the single-source precursor [Zn(OC(Me)CHC(Me)N( i Pr)) 2 ] ( 1 ) affording highly transparent (>80%) and conductive films (sheet resistance ∼70 KΩ/sq). Extension of this AACVD method whereby related precursors of the type, [R 2 M(OC(Me)CHC(Me)N( i Pr))] (R = Et, M = Al ( 2 ); R = Me, M = Ga ( 3 )), isolated as oils, were added to the precursor solution allowed for the deposition of aluminium- and gallium-doped ZnO (AZO and GZO) films, respectively. Complexes 1 – 3 were characterised by elemental analysis, NMR and mass spectrometry. Films were deposited in under 30 min at 400 °C, from CH 2 Cl 2 /toluene solutions with a N 2 carrier gas. Herein we report the bulk resistivity, ρ , of AZO (0.252 Ω cm) and GZO (0.756 Ω cm) films deposited from this novel approach. All the films transparency exceeded 80% in the visible, X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed all films to crystallise in the wurtzite phase whilst X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed the presence of the Al and Ga dopants in the films, and highlighted the low C-contamination (<5%) this route offers. Investigation of a mechanism analogous to the Kirkendall effect confirmed that heating of GZO films at 1000 °C produced the spinel structure GaZn 2 O 4 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]