Compound-induced changes in thermal, structural and optical properties of indium–gallium–zinc oxides prepared by sol–gel method

In this study, IZO/IGZO powders and films of different composition ratios were fabricated by sol–gel method. The influences of the composition ratio on the decomposition temperature, crystallization behavior, structural and optical properties of multi-component oxides were thoroughly examined. Thermogravimetric/differential scanning calorimetric results revealed that in contrast to zinc and indium oxides, the high crystallization temperature and low crystallinity of gallium oxide were attributed to the high dehydroxylation temperature of gallium hydroxide, which led to the high decomposition and crystallization temperatures of IGZO compound. The XRD analysis of the IGZO films confirmed that the addition of Ga amount made the films turn into amorphous easily. However, TEM analysis suggested that the IZO film (In:Zn = 1:2) and the IGZO (In:Ga:Zn = 1:1:1) film consisted of short-range-order nanostructure although the selected area diffraction of both samples indicated that they are amorphous. The transmittance measurements agreed well with the XRD results; that is, the band gaps of the IZO/IGZO films obviously depend on the composition ratio and are closely related to the change of the structural properties.