Investigation of pulse width effect on structural and optical properties of molybdenum oxide thin films deposited by HiPIMS

In this study, molybdenum oxide thin films are deposited by using high power impulse magnetic sputtering (HiPIMS) at different pulses length of 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 μs on glass substrates in a combination of reactive and non-reactive gases with a ratio of O2/Ar = 0.66. The structural and optical properties of these coatings are studied. The chemical composition of these metal oxides is determined by analyzing X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and are determined by MoOx stoichiometry with different x-values. By studying the optical properties, it is found that the oxygen deficiency with increasing pulse width cause to reduce the average of optical transmittance and also decrease the optical band gap of coatings.