The effect of varying temperature and O2 flow rate in ex situ annealed tin-doped indium for fabrication of commercial grade indium tin oxide

Abstract

In this work, tin-doped indium was deposited on a glass substrate via the electron beam evaporation technique. Then, the as-grown thin films were baked in the presence of oxygen at different O2 flow rates and temperatures inside a furnace to obtain transparent conducting oxide thin film structures. The electrical and optical properties of the layers were investigated, the thickness of all samples was kept at 500 nm and the rate of deposition was set at 0.1 nm min−1. The best optical and electrical properties were obtained at O2 flow rate of 1.5 Nl min−1 and temperatures of 500 °C where above 90 % optical transparency and ≤4 × 10−3ohm cm−1 electrical resistivity were achieved.