Weak localization and percolation effects in annealed In2O3-ZnO thin films

We have investigated the temperature T and magnetic field H dependences of the sheet resistance R□ of thin (In2O3)0.975-(ZnO)0.025 films with different resistivities and carrier densities prepared by postannealing in air at various annealing temperatures Ta. Regarding the magnetoconductance Δσ(H) ≡ 1/R□(H) − 1/R□(0) of films with large values of sheet resistance R□, agreement between weak localization theory and the data cannot be obtained for any value of the localization length L_ in (T) = √ Dτ _ in (T)L in (T)=Dτ in (T), where D and τin are the diffusion constant and inelastic scattering time, respectively. Taking account of the inhomogeneous morphology confirmed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) observation, we introduced the effective sheet resistance R□eff given by R□eff = α × R□meas., where the strength of reduction factor α is less than unit, α ⩽ 1. Using a suitable value of α(Ta), we successfully fitted the theory to data for Δσeff(H, T), regarding Lin2(T) as a fitting parameter in the region 2.0 K⩽T ⩽ 50 K. It was confirmed that the rate 1/τin(T) is given by the sum of the electron-electron and electron-phonon inelastic scattering rates.