Effects of air , oxygen and nitrogen ambient annealing on properties of ITO nanocolumns

Effects of annealing by different gas ambient on structural and optical properties of ITO nanocolumns deposited with Ni were investigated. For the first time, nickel (Ni) is deposited as catalyst prior to indium tin oxide (ITO) layer on glass and silicone substrates using radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering. Annealing was performed in air, nitrogen and oxygen ambient with flow-rate of 50 sccm each at 550°C temperature for 10 minutes. X-ray diffraction characterization show the samples achieve better crystallinity with higher intensity of (400) preferable peak and optical spectrum show highest transparency of 92% at 494 nm by samples annealed in oxygen compared to samples annealed in air and nitrogen. When annealed in oxygen ambient, the surface roughness is 1.379 nm which is smaller than samples annealed in different ambient.

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