Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Polycrystalline CuO Thin Films Prepared by Magnetron Sputtering

Cupric oxide thin films were deposited on silicon and sapphire substrates by reactive radio frequency magnetron sputtering at different substrate temperatures. The results showed that the CuO films were composed of different sizes of CuO nano-grains and the CuO films deposited on Si substrates showed a more dense and uniform surface than that deposited on Al 2 O 3 substrates. It was noted that both the CuO films deposited on Si and Al 2 O 3 substrates revealed only CuO related diffractions and the preferred orientation of the CuO films changed from (002) to (111) as the substrate temperature increased. Moreover, the carrier concentration was 1.141 × 10 18 cm −3 and the mobility was 0.401 cm 2 /v s at 450°C substrate temperature. The controllable electrical properties of the films can be achieved by the variation of crystal quality arising from the substrate temperature.