Influence of film thickness on microstructural and electrical properties of copper oxide thin film prepared by magnetron sputtering

In this present work, the copper oxide (CuO) thin films were deposited by dc reactive magnetron sputtering on silicon (100) wafer. The microstructural evolution of the CuO thin films were investigated as a function of film thickness at the range of 150 to 600 nm by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The optical transmittance was measured by UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer. The sheet resistances of the CuO thin films were characterized by four-point-probe measurement. The results indicated that the obtained films were polycrystalline. The surface roughness of the CuO thin film showed an increasing with film thickness. In addition, the relationship between film thickness, morphology and electrical property were discussed in this paper.