Abstract
ZnO thin films were deposited on sapphire, glass and silicon substrates by r.f. magnetron sputtering using metallic zinc target. A systematic study has been made of the influence of substrate temperature on the film structural properties. They exhibited a c-axis orientation of below 0.5° full width at half maximum of X-ray rocking curves, an extremely high resistivity of 1010 Ω cm and an energy gap of 3.3 eV at room temperature. It was found that a substrate temperature of 100 °C and target/substrate distance about 50 mm, very low gas pressures of 3.35 x 10-3 Torr in argon and oxygen mixed gas atmosphere giving to ZnO thin films a good homogeneity and a high crystallinity.