Abstract: Highly transparent and conductive zirconium-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Zr) thin films were deposited on quartz substrates by DC magnetron sputtering method. The effect of substrate temperature on the structural, morphology, electrical and optical properties of ZnO:Zr films were investigated in detail. The XRD results show that the deposited films are polycrystalline with a hexagonal structure and a preferred orientation along the c-axis. The crystallinity and conductivity of the deposited films are found to largely depend on substrate temperature. At the optimum substrate temperature of 300 ℃, the deposited films have the lowest resistivity of 7.58×10-4 Ω·cm and a high transmittance of above 91; in the visible range.

Key words: Highly transparent and conductive zirconium-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Zr) thin films were deposited on quartz substrates by DC magnetron sputtering method. The effect of substrate temperature on the structural, morphology, electrical and optical properties of ZnO:Zr films were investigated in detail. The XRD results show that the deposited films are polycrystalline with a hexagonal structure and a preferred orientation along the c-axis. The crystallinity and conductivity of the deposited films are found to largely depend on substrate temperature. At the optimum substrate temperature of 300 ℃, the deposited films have the lowest resistivity of 7.58×10-4 Ω·cm and a high transmittance of above 91; in the visible range.