Influence of thickness on structural properties of evaporated Tindoped In2O3 films

In this report, Tin-doped In2O3 known as indium tin oxide (ITO) thinfilms with different film thickness have been deposited onto the glasssubstrates by an electron beam evaporation technique in the presence ofoxygen. Subsequently, the as-deposited films were subjected to apostdeposition heat-treatment at 300 ºC for 1 h in air atmosphere. ITOmaterial was used a composition of 90wt% In2O3 and 10wt% SnO2. Thestructural properties of ITO thin films were investigated. X-Raydiffraction measurements employing CuKα radiation were performed todetermine the crystallinity of the ITO films which showed that the ITOfilms were polycrystalline with a cubic bixbyite structure. In addition,the grain size of the films increased with increasing the film thickness.Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements were acquired inambient air, in constant force mode, and showed that the surfacemorphology of the prepared ITO films vary significantly with filmthickness. The results reveal that the thicker film has higher surfaceroughness, which is attribute to the combination of small grains andform the bigger grains upon growth time.

Keywords:

Postdeposition heat-treatment , X-Ray diffraction , Atomic force microscopy (AFM) , Surface morphology