Kaźmierczak-Bałata Anna, Bodzenta Jerzy, Dehbashi Mohsen, Mayandi Jeyanthinath, Venkatachalapathy Vishnukanthan
Institute of Physics, Silesian University of Technology, Konarskiego 22B, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Blindern, P.O. Box 1048, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Dec 30;16(1):362. doi: 10.3390/ma16010362.
This work presents the influence of post processing on morphology, thermal and electrical properties of indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films annealed at 400 °C in different atmospheres. The commercially available 170 nm thick ITO layers deposited on glass were used as a starting material. The X-ray diffraction measurements revealed polycrystalline structure with dominant signal from (222) plane for all samples. The annealing reduces the intensity of this peak and causes increase of (221) and (440) peaks. Atomic force microscopy images showed that the surface morphology is typical for polycrystalline layers with roughness not exceeding few nm. Annealing in the oxygen and the nitrogen-hydrogen mixture (NHM) changes shapes of grains. The electrical conductivity decreases after annealing except the one of layer annealed in NHM. Thermal conductivities of annealed ITO thin films were in range from 6.4 to 10.6 W·m·K, and they were higher than the one for starting material-5.1 W·m·K. Present work showed that annealing can be used to modify properties of ITO layers to make them useful for specific applications e.g., in ITO based solar cells.
这项工作展示了后处理对在不同气氛中于400°C退火的氧化铟锡（ITO）薄膜的形貌、热性能和电学性能的影响。以沉积在玻璃上的市售170nm厚ITO层作为起始材料。X射线衍射测量表明，所有样品均为多晶结构，(222)面的信号占主导。退火会降低该峰的强度，并导致(221)和(440)峰增强。原子力显微镜图像显示，表面形貌是多晶层的典型特征，粗糙度不超过几纳米。在氧气和氮氢混合气（NHM）中退火会改变晶粒形状。除了在NHM中退火的层之外，退火后电导率降低。退火后的ITO薄膜热导率在6.4至10.6W·m·K范围内，高于起始材料的热导率——5.1W·m·K。目前的工作表明，退火可用于改变ITO层的性能，使其适用于特定应用，例如基于ITO的太阳能电池。
