ELECTRONIC AND OPTICAL-PROPERTIES OF ROOM-TEMPERATURE SPUTTER-DEPOSITED INDIUM TIN OXIDE

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a simple technique for magnetron sputter deposition of thin ITO films at room temperature without postdeposition annealing. Using a gas mixture of 0.7% O2 balanced with Ar and 50 W rf power, thin films with resistivity as low as 8.2 X 10(-4) OMEGA cm have been fabricated. The sputter deposited films have optical transmittance of over 80% in the visible range. The absorption edge located in the mid-infrared (4000-400 cm-1) has been observed to shift toward increasing wave number (decreasing wavelength) with increasing resistivity of the thin ITO films. At 0.7% O2 concentration it has been found that the resistivity is insensitive to the total pressure of the sputtering chamber over the range of 1.4-8.0 mTorr.