The spectral properties and colour functions of a radio frequency (RF)-based sputtering plasma source was monitored during consecutive sputter deposition of zinc doped indium oxide (IZO) thin films under argon and argon/hydrogen mix. The effect of target exposure to the hydrogen gas on charge density/mobility and spectral transmittance of the deposited films was investigated. We demonstrate that consecutive exposure to the hydrogen gas during the deposition process progressively affects the properties of thin films with a certain degree of continuous improvement in electrical conductivity while demonstrating that reverting to only argon from argon/ hydrogen mix follows a complex pathway, which has not been reported previously in such detail to our knowledge. We then demonstrate that this effect can be used to prepare highly conductive zinc oxide thin films without indium presence and as such eliminating the need for the expensive indium addition. We shall demonstrate that complexity observed in emission spectra can be simply identified by monitoring the colour of the plasma through its colour functions, making this technique a simple real-time monitoring method for the deposition process.

中文翻译：

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在降低气氛下使用RF等离子溅射制备的高导电氧化锌基透明导电氧化物薄膜

在氩气和氩气/氢气混合气下连续溅射锌掺杂的氧化铟（IZO）薄膜的过程中，监视了基于射频（RF）的溅射等离子体源的光谱特性和颜色函数。研究了靶暴露于氢气对沉积膜的电荷密度/迁移率和光谱透射率的影响。我们证明了在沉积过程中连续暴露于氢气会逐渐影响薄膜的性能，并在一定程度上不断提高电导率，同时表明从氩气/氢气混合物中仅还原为氩气遵循复杂的途径，而这并没有据我们所知，之前已经进行了如此详细的报道。然后，我们证明了这种效果可用于制备没有铟存在的高导电性氧化锌薄膜，从而消除了对昂贵的铟添加的需求。我们将证明，可以通过监视其颜色函数的颜色来简单地识别发射光谱中观察到的复杂性，从而使该技术成为沉积过程的简单实时监视方法。