Diana E. Proffit1, Thomas Philippe1, Jonathan D. Emery1, Qing Ma2, D. Bruce Buchholz1, Peter W. Voorhees1, Michael J. Bedzyk1, Robert P.H. Chang1, Thomas O. Mason1
1Northwestern University Materials Research Science & Engineering Center
2DND-CAT, Northwestern Synchrotron Research Center at Advanced Photon
The crystallization process of amorphous ZITO thin films was studied using x-ray diffraction. The resulting intensity peaks can be fit to a classical Johnson-Mehl- Avrami-Kolmorgrov relation for the volume fraction of crystal as a function of time, modified for the constant heating rate of the experiments. The good fit yields a higher activation energy than other amorphous semiconductors and implies that ZITO may be a good replacement for indium tin oxide in applications where the stability of the amorphous phase is important.
Integrated intensity of the amorphous peak as a function of temperature under a constant heating rate of 0.5 C/min. The solid line is the fit to the theory.