Engineered omnidirectional antireflection ITO nanorod films with super hydrophobic surface via glancing-angle ion-assisted electron-beam evaporation deposition

Abstract

Growths of the indium tin oxide (ITO) nanorod films have been demonstrated by ion-assisted electron-beam evaporation with the glancing-angle deposition technique based on variation in deposition rate. Investigations have been performed on nanostructured ITO films deposited on ITO-coated commercial substrates in comparison to bare substrates. The physical microstructures have been investigated by grazing-incident X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). The electrical, optical, and hydrophobic properties were characterized by four-point probe measurements, UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometry with angle-dependent technique, and contact angle goniometry, respectively. The results indicated that physical morphologies and nanorod diameters of ITO nanorod films were heavily influenced, and thus could be controlled, by deposition rate. The primary reason was self-annealing effect which occurred during film deposition and was crucial factor towards surface diffusion and film crystallinity. From the optical examinations, ITO nanorods deposited on the ITO-coated glasses exhibited significant improvements on transparent conductive oxide (TCO) properties from reference samples. The proposed ITO materials could therefore function as omnidirectional anti-reflection materials and super hydrophobic surface. This work have also proved that the ITO nanorods prepared by the electron-beam evaporation with the GLAD technique was highly promising for solar cell and optoelectronic applications.