High-Temperature Flexible Transparent Heater for Rapid Thermal Annealing of Thin Films

Abstract

Rapid heating is highly sought-after for compositional control in the sintering-annealing process of materials containing volatile elements. Although several innovative approaches have been reported, suitable processes for the rapid annealing of thin films are still very rare. Herein, we develop a high-temperature rapid heating method for thin-film preparation through employing an indium tin oxide (ITO)/mica-based flexible transparent heater (FTH). The ITO/mica FTH shows an extremely fast thermal response (2 s), high saturation temperature (>830 \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}C), and high heating-cooling rates (>${10}^{4}$ \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}C ${\mathrm{min}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$). Thermodynamic analysis reveals that the excellent heating performance can be largely attributed to the high heat-transfer coefficient and the low thickness of the mica substrates. The remarkable potential of our ITO/mica FTH for practical use is unambiguously evident by the demonstration of water heating and rapid thermal annealing of ferroelectric oxide thin films.