The AZO films AZO films with overall 1,090 cycles of ZnO plus Al2O3 layers were alternatively deposited on quartz substrates

at 150°C. The ALD cycles in the ZnO/Al2O3 supercycles are 50/1, 22/1, 20/1, 18/1, 16/1, 14/1, 12/1, and 10/1, where monocycle Al2O3 doping layers were inserted between different cycles of ZnO sublayers. Since the real Smoothened Agonist in vitro Al U0126 solubility dmso concentration matches the ‘rule of mixtures’ formula well at lower Al concentration below 5%, in which the growth rate of the AZO is close to pure ZnO [19]. The Al concentration in the AZO films was calculated using the following formula: (1) where is the percentage of Al2O3 cycles, ρ Al, and ρ Zn are the densities of Al and Zn atoms deposited during each ALD cycle for the pure Al2O3 and ZnO films, respectively. The densities of Al2O3 and ZnO growth by ALD are 2.91 and 5.62 g/cm3[20], So ρ Al and ρ Zn were Selleck Tariquidar calculated to be 5.89 × 10−10 mol/cm2/cycle and 1.27 × 10−9 mol/cm2/cycle, respectively. Figure  3 shows the XRD patterns of the AZO films grown on quartz substrate with different ZnO/Al2O3 cycle ratios that are varied

from 50:1 to 10:1 (corresponding to Al concentration from 0.96% to 4.42%). The diffraction pattern of the pure ZnO film without Al2O3 doping layer is also shown as a reference. The X-ray diffraction pattern from pure ZnO film exhibits multiple crystalline ZnO structure with (100), (002), and (110) peaks [17]. With increasing the Al doping concentration, the (002) and (110) diffraction peaks decrease strongly, thus the AZO films exhibiting (100) dominated the orientation. The intensity of the (100) diffraction peak

reaches a maximum at 2.06% (with the ratio of ZnO/Al2O3 layers is 22/1), and then it decreases at Clostridium perfringens alpha toxin higher Al concentration above 3%. The preferred (100) orientation of the AZO films in our samples is consistent with the results reported by Banerjee et al. [18]. It is worthy to note that the Al2O3 layer by ALD is amorphous at the growth temperature of 150°C, so the decrease of the (100) peak at higher Al concentration can be explained that the amorphous Al2O3 doping layers destroy the crystal quality during the growth of AZO films. Figure  3 also shows that the (100) peak of ZnO shifts to larger diffraction angle with increasing the concentration of Al in AZO films. This can be interpreted as that the increase of the Al concentration will reduce the lattice constant by substitutions of Zn2+ ions (ion radius 0.74 Å) with smaller Al3+ (0.53 Å) ions; therefore, the (100) peak of ZnO shifts to larger diffraction angle in AZO films. Figure 3 XRD patterns of the AZO films with different Al content from 0% to 4.42%. Figure  4 plots the resistivity of AZO films as a function of Al concentration, which was measured by four-point probe technique. As the Al concentration increases from 0% to 2.26%, the resistivity initially decreases from 1.11 × 10−2 to a minimum of 2.38 × 10−3 Ω·cm, and then increases at higher Al doping concentration.