Thin flms of aluminum zinc oxide (AZO) were fabricated by DC reactive magnetron sputtering from 50 wt% Al/Zn metallic
target. The structure and optical constants of AZO flms were controlled by changing the oxygen (O
2) fow rate. X-Ray diffraction revealed that the addition of oxygen transforms the crystalline nature of the metallic Al/Zn to completely amorphous
flm at 4.5 sccm. The flm density, surface roughness and deposition rate were evaluated from X-ray refectometry measurements and they were found to decrease strongly upon transformation from metallic to oxidic sputtering mode. The optical
constants were extracted from the ellipsometry measurements. As O
2 fow increased from 4.5 to 30 sccm, the optical band gap
increased from 4.74 to 5.33 eV whereas the refractive index decreased simultaneously. Low resistivity flms were obtained as
O
2 fow increased from 0 to 4 sccm whereas insulating flms were obtained for O2 fows above 4 sccm. The results indicated
that by regulating the oxygen fow diverse ZAO flms with diverse chemical stoichiometries and properties can be tuned.