Epitaxial growth and characterization of high quality In2O3 films on a-plane sapphire substrates by MOCVD

High quality epitaxial indium oxide (In2O3) films were prepared on the a-plane sapphire [Al2O3 (110)] substrates at 570-690 degrees C by the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique. The properties of structure, morphology and photoelectricity for the obtained films were studied at length. The film deposited at 650 degrees C showed the best crystalline quality with an out-of-plane epitaxial relationship of In2O3 (111)parallel to Al2O3 (110). This film also had the highest Hall mobility of 42 cm(2)V(-1)s(-1) with a lowest resistivity of 5 x 10(-3)Omega cm and a lowest carrier concentration of 3 x 10(19) cm(-3). All the samples possessed high average transparencies (over 83%) in the visible region and wide optical band gaps (similar to 3.70 eV). The In2O3 films with high crystalline quality as well as satisfactory photoelectrical characteristics can be extensively used in the manufacture of various semiconductor devices.