TY - JOUR
T1 - A novel reduction approach for fabrication of transparent conducting fluorine and tin doped indium oxide thin film with low sheet resistance
AU - Kadam, Abhijit N.
AU - Chowdhury, Shambo Roy
AU - Bathula, Chinna
AU - Kumar, Neeraj
AU - Kumar, Vanish
AU - Jha, Moti Kumar
AU - Lee, Sang Wha
AU - Misra, Mrinmoy
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l.
PY - 2022/10/1
Y1 - 2022/10/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Chemical reduction
KW - Interface engineering
KW - Oxygen vacancy
KW - Sheet resistance reduction
KW - Thin film
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131792362&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ceramint.2022.05.320
DO - 10.1016/j.ceramint.2022.05.320
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85131792362
SN - 0272-8842
VL - 48
SP - 29307
EP - 29313
JO - Ceramics International
JF - Ceramics International
IS - 19
ER -