Optical and electrical properties of ITO

What is it about?

Polycrystalline tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) thin films were prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with an ITO (In2O3-10wt.% SnO2) target and deposited on borosilicate glass substrates. By changing independently the deposition temperature and the oxygen pressure, a variety of microstructures were deposited. These different microstructures were mainly investigated not only by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with cross-section and plan-view electron micrographs, but also by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction. Composition changes in ITO thin films grown under different deposition conditions were characterized by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The optical and electrical properties were studied respectively by UV-visible spectrophotometry and a four-point probe. The best compromise in terms of high transmittance (T) in the visible range and low resistivity (rho) was obtained for films deposited between 0.66 and 2Pa oxygen pressure (PO2) at 200C substrate temperature (Ts). The influence of PO2 and Ts on the microstructure and ITO film properties is discussed.

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