Effect of silver growth temperature on the contacts between Ag and ZnO thin films

Highly c-axis oriented ZnO thin films were deposited on Si substrates by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. At different growth temperatures, 200 nm silver films as the contact metal were deposited on the ZnO thin films. The growth temperatures have great influence on the crystal quality of Ag films. Current-voltage characteristics were measured at room temperature. The Schottky contacts between Ag and ZnO thin films were successfully obtained when silver electrodes were deposited at 150°C and 200°C. Ohmic contacts were formed while the growth temperatures were lower than 150°C or higher than 200°C. After analysis, the forming of Ag/ZnO Schottky contacts was shown to be dependent on the appearance of the p-type inversion layer at the interface between Ag and ZnO layers.