Effect of secondary ion beam energy and oxygen partial pressure on the structural, morphological and optical properties of ITO films prepared by DMIBD technique

Abstract We produced indium tin oxide (ITO) films on glass substrates by DMIBD technology and investigated the effect of secondary ion beam energy and oxygen partial pressure on the surface morphology, crystallinity and optical property of ITO films. During deposition, substrate temperature was approximately 70 °C. AFM measurements shown that the film deposited at 50 eV exhibits the characteristic of polycrystalline thin films with a larger grain structure than that of other conditions. The XRD spectra indicated that the ITO films, which were produced in this study, have polycrystalline structures. It means that surface adatoms had enough mobility to migrate on the substrate with transferred kinetic energy by colliding secondary Si − ions. However, too energetic secondary ion beam bombardments decreased grain size and also roughened surface morphology due to radiation damage. Optical transmittance of ITO film in the visible region was related with structural and surface morphological properties. In this study, the highest optical transmittance of 85% at the wavelength of 550 nm and the lowest resistivity of 4×10 −4 Ωcm were obtained at the oxygen partial pressure of 1.3×10 −2 Pa and 50 eV, respectively.