Electrical and optical properties of sputtered nickel oxide films

As a p-type semiconductor NiO is potential material which can be used in many application including QD-LED. NiO films were deposited on glass substrates using rf-sputtering method. The properties of resistivity, surface roughness, etc in the NiO films were investigated at different sputtering parameters. The resistivity of $l.88{\times}10^{-2}{\sim}3.71{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}cm$ with sputtering power(80~200 watts) and change was very low. The sputtering pressure at 3~60 mTorr resulted in rather broad change ofresistivity of $0.58{\times}10^{-2}{\sim}4.67{\Omega}cm$. The oxygen content in sputtering gas was found to be very effective to control the resistivity from $2.01{\times}10^{-2}$ to $1.22{\times}10^2{\Omega}cm$ with 100~2.5% $O_2$ in Ar gas. In addition, the surface roughness showed the RMS values of 0.6~1.1 nm and the dependence on sputtering parameters was weak.