Indium Tin Oxide, ITO (In203:Sn02) Sputtering Targets (Size:1'' ,Thickness:0.125'' , Purity: 99.99%), is a ternary composition of indium, tin and oxygen in varying proportions. Depending on the oxygen content, it can either be described as a ceramic or alloy. Indium tin oxide is one of the most widely used transparent conducting oxides because of its two main properties: its electrical conductivity and optical transparency, as well as the ease with which it can be deposited as a thin film. As with all transparent conducting films, a compromise must be made between conductivity and transparency, since increasing the thickness and increasing the concentration of charge carriers increases the material's conductivity, but decreases its transparency.
Thin films of indium tin oxide are most commonly deposited on surfaces by physical vapor deposition. Often used is electron beam evaporation, or a range of sputter deposition techniques.
Highly transparent and electrically conductive oxide thin films are widely used as electrode layers in optoelectronic devices, such as in flat panel displays (FPDs), e.g. liquid crystal displays, organic light emit-ting diodes, plasma display panels, touch panels, electrochromic devices as well as antistatic conductive films and low emission coatings. Also TCO films have had a great interest in photovoltaic applications for the formation of flexible thin film solar cells. Along with optical properties, TCO films are used for high temperature strain gas sensors. The films are commonly produced by conventional direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering on glass or polymer substrates, requiring a fine tuned deposition process and high quality sputtering targets. Ceramic sputtering targets are used as a cathode for magnetron sputtering equipment for TCO film processing. Required film properties are defined by compositional and structural features of the ceramics and by sputtering process parameters. The ceramics should be of high purity with a uniform microcrystalline structure. They should possess high electrical conductivity and high density to maximise the useful life of the targets. These characteristics should allow the formation of electrically conductive transparent films without structural defects during sputtering. One of the most reliable and suitable materials for sputtering targets for the mentioned applications is indium tin oxide (ITO) ceramics because these materials provide highly homogeneous nanostructured or amorphous transparent and electrically conductive thin films with thickness of 70–250 nm. These ceramics are formed by the addition of tin oxide to indium oxide, resulting in modification (distortion) of the crystalline lattice of indium oxide and an increase in its electrical conductivity. The ITO ceramics have a wide direct band gap.
Comments
Post a Comment