Effect of Post-deposition Annealing on the Physical Properties of DC Magnetron Sputtered Molybdenum Oxide Films

• Published in: AIP conference proceedings Vol. 1004; no. 1; pp. 53 - 57
• Main Authors: Nirupama, V, Sekhar, M Chandra, Reddy, P Sreedhara, Hussain, O M, Uthanna, S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.2008
• Subjects: ABSORPTION SPECTRA; ANNEALING; DEPOSITION; FOURIER TRANSFORMATION; INFRARED SPECTRA; MATERIALS SCIENCE; MOLYBDENUM; MOLYBDENUM OXIDES; MONOCRYSTALS; ORTHORHOMBIC LATTICES; OXYGEN; PARTIAL PRESSURE; REFRACTIVE INDEX; SILICON; SPUTTERING; SUBSTRATES; TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE; X-RAY DIFFRACTION
• ISBN: 0735405239; 9780735405233
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/1.2927584

Molybdenum oxide films were deposited on glass and single crystal silicon substrates held at room temperature by sputtering of molybdenum target in an oxygen partial pressure of 2Xl0-4 mbar. The MoO3 films were annealed in oxygen atmosphere at various temperatures in the range 473-673 K. The effect of annealing temperature on the structure, chemical binding configuration, and optical properties of the MoO3 films was studied. The X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the as-deposited MoO3 films were amorphous. It crystallizes into a layered orthorhombic phase by the post-deposition annealing at a temperature of 673 K. The Fourier transform infrared spectrum of the MoO3 films annealed at 473 K exhibits the absorption bands at 560, 840 and 995 cm-1 related to the active stretching modes of MoO6 octahedra. When the films annealed at 673 K the intensity of the absorption band observed at 560 cm-1 diminished and the band of 995 cm-1 split into two bands of 995 and 1010 cm-1 which are related to the zig-zag rows of layered structure of MoO3. The optical band gap of the as-deposited and annealed films was 3.07 and 3.20 eV respectively. The refractive index increased with increase of annealing temperature.