Structural studies of room-temperature RF magnetron sputtered ZnO films under different RF powered conditions

We have deposited the ZnO thin films on Si(0 0 1) substrate at room temperature by the RF magnetron sputtering method. We demonstrated that the radio frequency (RF) plasma power can dramatically affect the structural properties of ZnO thin films. Under the optimized condition of RF power of 150 W, a c-axis-oriented wurtzite structured ZnO thin film with the X-ray diffraction (XRD) full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 0.21° and the atomic force microscopy (AFM) root mean square (RMS) values of <20 nm was prepared.