The filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) technique is a well established deposition method for wear resistant mechanical coatings. More recently, this method has attracted attention for growing ZnO based transparent conducting films. However, the potential of FCVA deposition to prepare ZnO layers for electronic devices is largely unexplored. This thesis addresses the use of FCVA deposition for the fabrication of active ZnO based electronic devices. The structural, electrical and optical characteristics of unintentionally doped ZnO films grown on different sapphire substrates were systematically investigated. The potential of FCVA to grow both polar and non-polar ZnO films was demonstrated. The resulting films showed considerable promise for device applications with properties including high transparency(> 90%), moderate intrinsic carrier concentrations (10¹⁷ - 10¹⁹ cm⁻³), electron mobilities up to 110 cm⁻²/Vs, low surface roughness (< 5 nm) and well-structured photoluminescence. Post-growth annealing in oxygen at temperatures up to 800 C produced significant improvements in the electronic and optical properties of these films, due to the formation of larger grains with lower inter-grain potential barriers. Silver oxide (AgOᵪ ) and iridium oxide (IrOᵪ) Schottky diodes fabricated on annealed FCVA ZnO films showed ideality factors as low as 1.20, barrier heights up to 0.85 eV and high sensitivity to ultraviolet light (up to ̴ 10⁻⁵ at -2 V). Transparent and opaque MESFETs fabricated on these films showed well defined field effect characteristics, channel mobilities up to 70 cm⁻²/Vs and insensitivity to 1 mW/cm⁻² visible light. These devices were further subjected to extensive bias and temperature stress tests. MESFET stability appeared to be strongly dependent on Schottky gate type, bias conditions and ZnO film morphology. Positive bias stress of AgOᵪ gated devices resulted in irreversible damage, that is thought to be due to Ag electromigration across the gate interface. Mapping of the surface potential of the ZnO channel material with Kelvin probe force microscopy suggested a strong relationship between the defect density at grain boundaries and both channel mobility and current stability. Interval growth techniques were found to reduce the density of defects at grain boundaries and produced MESFETs with higher current stability. IrOᵪ gated devices showed superior bias stability and temperature resilience from 25 C-195 C.

Submitted by Lucas Augusto Moisés (lucasaugustomoises@hotmail.com) on 2018-11-12T14:28:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Lucas Augusto Moisés_2.pdf: 2728995 bytes, checksum: 4372fefa9820f84b2816df79babc8610 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Aparecida Puerta null (dripuerta@rc.unesp.br) on 2018-11-13T18:12:17Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 moises_la_me_rcla.pdf: 2728995 bytes, checksum: 4372fefa9820f84b2816df79babc8610 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-13T18:12:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 moises_la_me_rcla.pdf: 2728995 bytes, checksum: 4372fefa9820f84b2816df79babc8610 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / No presente trabalho produziram-se filmes finos transparentes de ZnO depositados pela técnica de spray-pirólise com objetivo de estudar o comportamento de suas propriedades elétricas durante a incidência de luz UV e após a incidência de luz (no escuro). Para tal, foram propostos três designs experimentais do tipo fatorial de dois níveis, um do tipo fatorial fracionário com base no modelo de Plackett-Burman e dois fatoriais completos. Na realização desses experimentos, variou-se parâmetros de produção do filme e também parâmetros experimentais no momento da realização da medida, sendo nove parâmetros no total. Através dos dados obtidos nesses experimentos, obteve-se respostas experimentais. Em cima disso foram realizadas analises estatísticas. Assim, através dessas análises se conheceu quais os fatores experimentais tiveram maior influência em cada uma dessas respostas e os resultados obtidos tiveram um bom acordo com a teoria, indicando a eficácia dos experimentos fatoriais de dois níveis realizados. Por fim, foi realizado medidas de predição e comparado as respostas obtidas nessas medidas com os dados estatísticos obtidos. Através dessa comparação, foi encontrado uma resposta reprodutível, indicando assim a possibilidade aplicação de filmes de ZnO na área de sensores / In the present work, transparent thin films of ZnO deposited by the spray - pyrolysis technique were used to study the behavior of their electrical properties during the incidence of UV light and after the incidence of light (in the dark). For that, three experimental designs of the two - level factorial type were proposed, one of the fractional factorial type based on the Plackett - Burman model and two complete factorials. In the performance of these experiments, parameters of production of the film were varied as well as experimental parameters at the moment of the measurement, being nine parameters in total. Through the data obtained in these experiments, experimental responses were obtained. Statistical analyzes were performed on top of this. Thus, through these analyzes it was known which experimental facto rs had the greatest influence on each one of these responses and the results obtained had a good agreement with the theory, indicating the effectiveness of the two - level factorial experiments performed. Finally, prediction measures were performed and the r esponses obtained in these measurements were compared with the statistical data obtained. Through this comparison, a reproducible response was found, thus indicating the possibility of applying ZnO films in the area of sensors