A novel reduction approach for fabrication of transparent conducting fluorine and tin doped indium oxide thin film with low sheet resistance

Abhijit N. Kadam, Shambo Roy Chowdhury, Chinna Bathula, Neeraj Kumar, Vanish Kumar, Moti Kumar Jha, Sang Wha Lee, Mrinmoy Misra

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Surface and interface engineering of fluorine and tin doped indium oxide thin film at mild conditions to modulate optoelectronic properties is of great significance. Herein, a simple, low-cost solgel-spin-coating method was used to create a reproducible, scalable, stable, transparent, and conducting tin fluorine doped indium oxide thin film (FTIO thin film). To improve the electrical and optical properties of the thin film, a novel chemical reduction process was developed that did not require any reducing gas, inert atmosphere, and high temperature annealing. The chemical reduction time and concentration of NaBH4-dependent analysis shows a big drop (∼83%) in sheet resistance, due to increased oxygen vacancy in thin film. This increased oxygen vacancy was confirmed from XPS analysis. The treated FTIO thin film show lower resistivity (ρ = 0.95 × 10−3 Ω cm), highest figure of merit (0.001 Ω-1), roughness of 19.53 Å, and sheet resistance of 193 ± 3 Ω/sq, when compared to all other the solgel-spin-coating thin film process testified to date. To test the general applicability of the proposed reduction technique, it was applied to commercially available ITO thin film, and found to reduce sheet resistance by more than 53% (≤7 ± 1 Ω/sq) of the initial sheet resistance. Compared to other common post-treatment approaches, the proposed methodology reduces sheet resistance and could satisfy the demands of most real applications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)29307-29313
Number of pages7
JournalCeramics International
Volume48
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2022

Keywords

  • Chemical reduction
  • Interface engineering
  • Oxygen vacancy
  • Sheet resistance reduction
  • Thin film

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