Synthesis of ZTO (Zn2SnO4) based ceramic powders via hydrothermal method and manufacturing of sputtering target to be used in thin film production

The competition between developing technologies is tremendously increasing with the rise in the population of the world. This demand increases the expected performance from technologies in which advanced materials remain at the forefront. Today, metal oxides find themselves in the market for many application areas such as optoelectronic systems, display technologies, gas sensors, and information storage systems, thanks to their superior properties. In this thesis, it is aimed to develop indium free ZTO based thin film for use in display technologies as a TFT active layer, starting from powder synthesis to ready to use ceramic sputtering target. In this context, Zn2SnO4 ceramic powders with nano-sized (~60 nm), high structural and chemical purity (>99.95% by wt.) have been successfully synthesized by hydrothermal method. Starting from synthesized powders, ZTO sputtering target with higher density (~95% relative density), fine grain size (~0.8 µm) and narrow grain size distribution was produced by conventional sintering method at T=1075 ºC for 2 hours. In addition, ZTO sputtering target was compared with ZTO target materials produced by solid state synthesis and commercially available ZTO target. According to the obtained results, it has been shown that the sputter target prepared in this thesis have a great potential for use in production of thin films thanks to its superior material properties. Moreover, in this thesis, Al2O3 doped Zn2SnO4 synthesis was carried out under hydrothermal conditions, and it was shown that Zn2SnO4 cubic structure was modified by the addition of Al2O3 up to 8.0% by mole without forming any additional solid solution.