Stable Indium Tin Oxide with High Mobility

Abstract

Indium tin oxide (ITO) is widely used in a variety of optoelectronic devices, occupying a huge market share of $1.7 billion. However, traditional preparation methods such as magnetron sputtering limit the further development of ITO in terms of high preparation temperature (>350 °C) and low mobility (∼30 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ). Herein, we develop an adjustable process to obtain high-mobility ITO with both appropriate conductivity and infrared transparency at room temperature by a reactive plasma deposition (RPD) system, which has many significant advantages including low-ion damage, low deposition temperature, large-area deposition, and high throughput. By optimizing the oxygen flow during the RPD process, ITO films with a high mobility of 62.1 cm 2 V −1 s −1 and a high average transparency of 89.7% at 800−2500 nm are achieved. Furthermore, the deposited ITO films present a smooth surface with a small roughness of 0.3 nm. The stability of ITO films to heat, humidity, radiation, and alkali environments is also investigated with carrier mobility average changes of 19.3, 4.4, and 4.7%, showcasing strong environmental adaptability. We believe that stable ITO films with high mobility prepared by a low-damage deposition method will be widely used in full spectral optoelectronic applications, such as tandem solar cells, infrared photodetectors, light-emitting diodes, etc.

Cerium-Doped Indium Oxide as a Top Electrode of Semitransparent Perovskite Solar Cells

“…Compared with the 1%-ICO sample, the 1%-ICO-A film was annealed at 250 °C after deposition and the 1%-ICO-H sample was deposited using a higher operating current of 60 A. reduce the near-infrared (NIR) parasitic absorption. It can also be seen that the mobility of the annealed 1%-ICO film improves significantly from the nonannealed one from about 46 to 125 cm 2 V −1 s −1 , which is much higher than that of the magnetron sputtering ITO films (∼40 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ), 38,39 demonstrating the advantage of ICO as a transparent electrode. Although the conductivity of the 1%-ICO film prepared at a higher RPD operating current is higher compared to the low-current condition, it can be seen from Table 1 that the high conductivity is mainly derived from the increase in carrier density, while the mobility does not show much increase.…”

In Situ Radiation Hardness Study of Amorphous Zn–In–Sn–O Thin-Film Transistors with Structural Plasticity and Defect Tolerance

“…Although In generally provides even higher carrier mobility than Sn, 38 the significant vacancy generation from the weak oxygen binding contributes to TFT instability under high energetic 5 MeV proton irradiation. However, as shown in c-In 4 Sn 3 O 12 48 and a-ZnIn 4 Sn 4 O 15 , 38 the realization of densely packed structure with mixing of In and Sn could provide high electron mobility (20−40 cm 2 /V s) 49,50 and suppression of oxygen vacancy generation. 38,48,51,52 Finally, we note that Ga incorporation results in a significant decrease in radiation resistance as well as reduced mobility.…”

Monitoring the Electrochemical Failure of Indium Tin Oxide Electrodes via Operando Ellipsometry Complemented by Electron Microscopy and Spectroscopy

“…Transparent electrodes are omnipresent in displays, optoelectronic, photovoltaic, and electrochromic devices, as well as in bioelectronic and photoelectrocatalytic applications. Among them, the transparent conductive oxide indium tin oxide (ITO) has been and still is the industrial and laboratory standard for more than half a century. − Due to shrinking indium resources, there are multiple approaches to replace ITO; − however, research on the optimization of ITO electrode layers is still ongoing. − Despite the multifarious presence of ITO in research and in the literature, studies on degradation are rather scarce. Especially for the utilization in bioelectronics and photoelectrocatalysis purposes, contact with an electrolytic environment demands the characterization of an inert electrochemical potential window .…”