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Abstract :
[en] ZnO-Ag composite by reactive magnetron co-sputtering: structural and morphological characterisations
R. Francq1,2, P.-A. Cormier1, R. Snyders1,2
1Chimie des Interactions Plasma-Surface, CIRMAP, University of Mons, Place du parc 20, Mons (Belgium)
2Materia Nova Research Center, Avenue Copernic 1, Mons (Belgium)
Nowadays, zinc oxide (ZnO) is extensively used as a semi-conductor for gas sensor or solar cell applications. It is accepted that doping ZnO films with Ag is a potential strategy to enhance its photocatalytic and antibacterial activities. Therefore, the controlled synthesis of ZnO-Ag thin films is of particular interest for medical use or for waste water purification. Nowadays, ZnO-Ag thin films are generally synthesized by wet chemistry methods (co-precipitation, sol-gel, hydrothermal, flame spray pyrolysis and electro-spinning) often using toxic solvents. Therefore, the development of less pollutant techniques would be of great interest for a large scale development of such a kind of coatings.
In this work, reactive magnetron co-sputtering is chosen as an efficient method to grow ZnO-Ag thin films. This approach allows a fine tuning of the the cristalline structure, morphology and stoichiometry of the films which are the main criteria defining the efficiency of the material in a given application. Our goal is to investigate the correlation between the experimental parameters of our process (applied power, pressure, target to substrate distance, oxygen flow rate) with the composition and the microstructure of the grown films.
The deposited films are characterized in terms of phase constitution (X-ray diffraction), microstructure (scanning electron microscopy), and chemistry (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy).
