Comparative study between erbium and erbium oxide-doped diamondlike carbon films deposited by pulsed laser deposition technique Influence of sputtering parameter on the optical and electrical properties of zinc-doped indium oxide thin films Gallium oxide (Ga 2 O 3 ) thin films were made by sputter deposition employing a Ga 2 O 3 ceramic target for sputtering. The depositions were made over a wide range of substrate temperatures (T s ), from 25 to 600 C. The effect of T s on the chemical bonding, surface morphological characteristics, optical constants, and electrical properties of the grown films was evaluated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), and four-point probe measurements. XPS analyses indicate the binding energies (BE) of the Ga 2p doublet, i.e., the Ga 2p 3/2 and Ga 2p 1/2 peaks, are located at 1118.0 and 1145.0 eV, respectively, characterizing gallium in its highest chemical oxidation state (Ga 3þ ) in the grown films. The core level XPS spectra of O 1s indicate that the peak is centered at a BE $ 531 eV, which is also characteristic of Ga-O bonds in the Ga 2 O 3 phase. The granular morphology of the nanocrystalline Ga 2 O 3 films was evident from AFM measurements, which also indicate that the surface roughness of the films increases from 0.5 nm to 3.0 nm with increasing T s . The SE analyses indicate that the index of refraction (n) of Ga 2 O 3 films increases with increasing T s due to improved structural quality and packing density of the films. The n(k) of all the Ga 2 O 3 films follows the Cauchy's dispersion relation. The room temperature electrical resistivity was high ($200 X-cm) for amorphous Ga 2 O 3 films grown at T s ¼ RT-300 C and decreased to $1 X-cm for nanocrystalline Ga 2 O 3 films grown at T s ! 500-600 C. A correlation between growth conditions, microstructure, optical constants, and electrical properties of Ga 2 O 3 films is derived. V C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.