Influence of process parameters on the sheet resistance and transmittance of ultrathin Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films

HRBS/channeling studies of ultra-thin ITO films on Si

In this work, an ultra-sensitive optical absorption technique based on Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) was employed to study the effects of UV treatment on the optical properties of ultra-thin indium tin oxide (ITO) films. The ITO films were submitted to UV treatment either after the deposition process or in-situ during the thin-film growth process. Different flow rates of oxygen in the vacuum chamber during film growth were also investigated. An ITO-coated glass substrate inserted in the CRDS cavity at a Brewster’s angle provided a ring-down time of about 1.6 µs, which enabled measurements of optical absorption loss as small as 3 × 10−6. To compare the effects of the UV film treatment, the CRDS technique was employed to measure the extinction coefficient for samples coated with and without the UV treatment. While the optical absorption data was being collected, the electrical resistivity was also simultaneously monitored. The post-deposition UV treatment was found to improve the optical transparency and the electrical performance of ITO film; the optical extinction coefficient of the ultra-thin ITO film is shown to decrease by about 24%. The in-situ UV treatment during growth is also shown to consistently increase the optical transparency of the ultra-thin ITO films and providing outstanding optical performance especially for high flow rates of oxygen during film growth. The electrical resistivity for oxygen flow rates in the range 0.6 - 1.4 sccm is also improved by the in-situ UV treatment, however it shows a sharp increase for oxygen flow rates beyond 1.4 sccm. The CRDS platform is demonstrated here to provide a highly accurate and sensitive methodology for measurement of minute optical absorption losses in ultra-thin films that typically cannot be precisely measured using other conventional spectrophotometric techniques.

The opportunity for substantial efficiency enhancements of thin film hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar photovoltaic (PV) cells using plasmonic absorbers requires ultra-thin transparent conducting oxide top electrodes with low resistivity and high transmittances in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Fabricating ultra-thin indium tin oxide (ITO) films (sub-50 nm) using conventional methods has presented a number of challenges; however, a novel method involving chemical shaving of thicker (greater than 80 nm) RF sputter deposited high-quality ITO films has been demonstrated. This study investigates the effect of oxygen concentration on the etch rates of RF sputter deposited ITO films to provide a detailed understanding of the interaction of all critical experimental parameters to help create even thinner layers to allow for more finely tune plasmonic resonances. ITO films were deposited on silicon substrates with a 98-nm, thermally grown oxide using RF magnetron sputtering with oxygen concentrations of 0, 0.4 and 1.0 sccm and annealed at 300 °C air ambient. Then the films were etched using a combination of water and hydrochloric and nitric acids for 1, 3, 5 and 8 min at room temperature. In-between each etching process cycle, the films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, Raman Spectroscopy, 4-point probe (electrical conductivity), and variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry. All the films were polycrystalline in nature and highly oriented along the (222) reflection. Ultra-thin ITO films with record low resistivity values (as low as 5.83 × 10−4 Ω·cm) were obtained and high optical transparency is exhibited in the 300–1000 nm wavelength region for all the ITO films. The etch rate, preferred crystal lattice growth plane, d-spacing and lattice distortion were also observed to be highly dependent on the nature of growth environment for RF sputter deposited ITO films. The structural, electrical, and optical properties of the ITO films are discussed with respect to the oxygen ambient nature and etching time in detail to provide guidance for plasmonic enhanced a-Si:H solar PV cell fabrication.

Ultrathin metal films and indium tin oxide (ITO) films were prepared by vacuum evaporation on n-type Si substrate. These structures exhibit interesting photoelectronic properties, and lateral photovoltage was observed. The photovoltaic output can be a linear function of the position of light spot (localized illumination) with zero output for the light spot in the center; it reverses sign when the light spot scans from one side to the other side of the center position. The mechanism for this photovoltaic behavior is discussed.

Indium tin oxide (ITO) film, which is the most commonly used transparent conductive film (TCF), has traditionally been believed to be transparent in the visible spectrum but to reflect infrared (IR) light beyond the plasma wavelength (λp). However, our theoretical analysis challenges this notion by demonstrating that an ultrathin ITO TCF that is thinner than the light's penetration depth can overcome the transmission barrier at λp. To validate the theoretical modeling, we have successfully fabricated ultrathin ITO films that, despite having λp ≈ 1 μm, remain transparent from 400 nm to 20 μm. This represents the broadest transparency range ever reported for any In2O3-based TCF. The 10-nm-thick ITO TCFs have high visible transmittance (91.0% at 550 nm), low resistivity (5 × 10−4 Ω cm), and good IR transmittance (averaging 60% over 1.35–18.35 μm). Their IR transparency facilitates radiative cooling of the underlying circuitry. When an operational resistor is enclosed by commercial ITO TCFs that are 140 nm thick, its temperature increases. However, using 10-nm-thick ITO TCFs instead of the commercial ones can completely avoid this temperature rise. Moreover, attaching a silver grid to a 10-nm-thick ITO TCF can reduce the effective sheet resistance to ∼10 Ω/□ at the expense of only ∼3% transmittance. This development paves the way for large-scale applications that require low sheet resistance and far-IR transparency.

Indium tin oxide (ITO) films have been widely used in optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells, organic light emitting diodes, liquid crystal devices and so on. The simple and efficient laser annealing technologies have been employed to achieve the desired structure and properties of the films for practical applications. We focus on an 1064nm quasi-CW laser annealing, which is maybe an alternative low-cost choice compared with the current excimer and fs laser annealing. Effects of 1064nm quasi-CW laser annealing on the optical performance, electrical property and chemical composition of the ITO film were investigated in detail in this paper. It was found that the ITO film surface appeared discoloration annealed by 2000 W/cm2. Experimental results showed the transmittance of the above annealed ITO film at near-infrared band was improved obviously and the electrical sheet resistance was increased slightly compared with that of the unannealed film. The improvement of the transmission at 1064nm of the annealed film come from the reduction of absorption. The XPS analysis results showed a modification of rations of oxygen and Sn2+ after laser annealing, indicating the reduction of oxygen vacancy and free electrons, were responsible for the optoelectrical property modification of ITO films. However, when the higher annealed laser power density was utilized, the ITO film surface occurred laser-induced cracks. The annealing mechanism was discussed.

A novel method is proposed to measure the thickness of the indium tin oxide (ITO) film, which is less than 20 nm, using valid Fourier’s phase information of white light correlogram and curve matching algorithm. Based on the Fourier transform amplitude information, the valid phase distribution function that contains the thin transparent electrode ITO film thickness information has been successfully extracted. A curve matching algorithm based on standard deviation is employed to accurately calculate the thickness of such thin ITO films. The experimental results show that the thickness values were consistent with that determined using the stylus instruments, indicating that this method can be applied to measure the ITO film thickness ranging from 5 to 100 nm.

Effect of vacuum annealing on indium tin oxide transistor with nanometer-thin channel

We systematically investigated the temperature-dependent behaviors of the resistivities ρ and carrier concentrations n of a series of ultrathin indium tin oxide (ITO) films with thickness t ranging from ∼5.3 to ∼35.0 nm grown on yttrium-stabilized ZrO2 substrates. For the t ≳ 17.5 nm films, the resistivity versus temperature can be described by the Bloch–Grüneisen formula, and the carrier concentration almost retains constant over the whole measured temperature range. For the t ≃ 5.3 nm (7.0 nm) film, the carrier concentration increases with increasing temperature above ∼300 K, and the resistivity initially increases with increasing temperature and then decreases with further increasing temperature above ∼330 K (∼355 K). By comparison of the transport properties of ITO films depositing on different substrates and exposing the films on different atmospheres, it is found that the enhancement of carrier concentration and reduction of resistivity at high temperature regime originate from the dissociative adsorption of water vapor on the surface of the ITO films.

Pulsed laser deposited crystalline ultrathin indium tin oxide films and their conduction mechanisms

Solution-based fabrication methods can greatly reduce the cost and broaden the applications of transparent conducting oxides films, such as indium tin oxide (ITO) films. In this paper, we report on ITO films fabricated by spin coating methods on glass substrates with two different ITO sources: (1) a commercial ITO nanopowder water dispersion and (2) a sol-gel ITO solution. A simple and fast air annealing process was used to treat as-coated ITO films on a controlled temperature hot plate. Thermogravimetric analysis and x-ray diffraction showed that highly crystalline ITO films were formed after the annealing steps. The final ITO films had a good combination of optical properties and electrical properties, especially for films made from five layers of sol-gel ITO (92.66% transmittance and 8.7 × 10−3 Ω cm resistivity). The surface morphology and conducting network on the ITO films were characterized by non-contact and current atomic force microscopy. It was found that conducting paths were only partially connected for the nanoparticle ITO dispersion films, whereas the sol-gel ITO films had a more uniformly distributed conducting network on the surface. We also used the sol-gel ITO films to fabricate a simple liquid crystal display (LCD) device to demonstrate the excellent properties of our films.

This paper presents the manufacture of ultrathin (<1 µm) transparent conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) films based on nanoparticulate ITO slurries by the profile rod technique using the binder polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) as an organic additive. The influence of the slurry composition on the film thickness and the specific electrical resistance as well as the transmission of the dried films is evaluated. The organic solvent ethanol and different types of the PVP binder were tested for slurry preparation and layer performance. ITO green films with low specific electrical resistance of 3 Ω cm, 87 % inline transmission, and layer thicknesses of only 250 nm could be manufactured. Furthermore, the influence of heat treatments up to 400 °C on the electrical properties of the ITO films was evaluated.

Inkjet-printing of indium tin oxide (ITO) films for transparent conducting electrodes

Roll-to-Roll fabrication of ITO thin film for flexible optoelectronics applications: The role of post-annealing

Indium tin oxide (ITO) films had been deposited on glass substrate without substrate heating and then tungsten oxide (WO3) films were deposited on ITO films by DC magnetron sputtering. In this work, we present the annealing ambient effect of ITO substrate on electrochromic properties of WO3 films. The ITO films were annealing in air and in vacuum at 350°C before coating with WO3 films. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of ITO films for as-deposited, annealing in air and in vacuum were investigated by X-ray diffraction, UV-VIS-NIR spectroscope and four point probe. The ITO films had a better crystallinity and lager grain size after annealing in air and in vacuum. The resistivity of ITO films increase with annealing in air, but decrease with annealing in vacuum. The WO3 films show difference surface morphology with higher grain size and surface roughness when coating on annealed ITO films in both cases. The electrochemical properties of film systems were characterized by cyclic voltammetry. The film systems of ITO plus WO3 showed that the charge capacity of ITO substrate annealing in vacuum was higher than the as-deposited ITO substrate and the ITO substrate annealing in air, respectively. This result corresponded to electrical conductivity of each ITO substrate.