X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study and thermoelectric properties of Al-doped ZnO thin films

In this paper, high quality Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were prepared by direct current (DC) reactive magnetron sputtering using a Zn target (99.99%) containing Al of 1.5 wt.%. The films obtained were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and thermoelectric measurements. The XPS results reveal that Zn and Al exist only in oxidized state, while there are dominant crystal lattice and rare adsorbed oxygen for O in the annealed AZO thin films. The studies of thermoelectric property show a striking thermoelectric effect in the AZO thin films. On the one hand, the thermoelectromotive and magnetothermoelectromotive forces increase linearly with increasing temperature difference (ΔT). On the other hand, the thermoelectric power (TEP) decreases with the electrical resistance of the sample. But the TEP increases with the increase of temperature below 300 K, and it nearly does not change around room temperature. The experimental results also demonstrate that the annealing treatment increases TEP, while the external magnetic field degrades TEP.