Effects of Prestrain Applied to a Polyethylene Terephthalate Substrate Before the Coating of Al-Doped ZnO Film on Film Quality, Electrical Properties, and Pop-In Behavior During Nanoindentation

Nanoindentation evaluation of cathodic vacuum arc deposited ZnO film on PET substrate

“…However, when the load force was increased over the critical point at the second point, the pop-in occurs and the indenter moves downward suddenly. In [2], pop-in cracks occurred at a load of 800 uN with a thickness of 664 nm for the Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin film created by RF sputtering, but our data indicate that such loading results in cracks at 1980 uN with a thickness of 250 nm for pure thin films created by CVAD. This result confirms that CVAD films have higher adhesion force and hardness than sputtered films [3].…”

“…The indentation experiments were used to perform the load-displacement test and the scratch test. [2], while the deposited ZnO thin film was still suspended at both ends and not totally penetrated. However, when the load force was increased over the critical point at the second point, the pop-in occurs and the indenter moves downward suddenly.…”

“…Such products exploit the mechanical properties of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films to ensure patterning durability and accuracy [1][2][3][4]. Zinc oxide (ZnO) films are inexpensive to produce, nontoxic, easily doped and chemically stable in hydrogen plasma; they also have a larger band gap (3.3 eV, at 300 K), high conductivity, and high-excitation-binding energy (60 meV) [5][6][7][8][9].…”

“…Cathodic vacuum arc deposition (CVAD) has been used for low temperature deposition because its ultra high degree of ionization in plasma (80~100%) and high ion energy (50~150 eV) allow for the control of the impact energy of the deposited ions on the substrate surface using electric fields [9,10]. However, few studies have examined the mechanical properties of ZnO thin film on plastic substrates, especially CVAD ZnO film [2,3].…”

Effects of Deposition Inclination Angle on Microstructure and Electrical Properties of Al‐Doped ZnO Coating Films

“…The effects of prestrain applied to a PET substrate before the coating of various films were investigated in our previous studies . The effects of the inclination angle of ion beams in the deposition process on the intensity of ZnO crystallines have seldomly been reported in the literature.…”