Effect of Annealing Temperature and Oxygen Flow in the Properties of Ion Beam Sputtered SnO-₂x Thin Films

Chun-Min Wang; Chun-Chieh Huang; Jui-Chao Kuo; Dipti Ranjan Sahu; Jow-Lay Huang

doi:10.3390/ma8085243

Effect of Annealing Temperature and Oxygen Flow in the Properties of Ion Beam Sputtered SnO_-₂_x Thin Films

Materials (Basel). 2015 Aug 14;8(8):5289-5297. doi: 10.3390/ma8085243.

Authors

Chun-Min Wang¹, Chun-Chieh Huang², Jui-Chao Kuo³, Dipti Ranjan Sahu⁴, Jow-Lay Huang^{5

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Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan 701, Taiwan. n5896114@mail.ncku.edu.tw.
² Department of Electrical Engineering, Cheng Shiu University, No. 840, Chengcing Road, Niaosong Township, Kaohsiung 833, Taiwan. jymtwn@gmail.com.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan 701, Taiwan. jckuo@mail.ncku.edu.tw.
⁴ Amity Institute of Nanotechnology, Amity University, Sector 125, Noida, India. dsahu@amity.edu.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan 701, Taiwan. jlh888@mail.ncku.edu.tw.
⁶ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National University of Kaohsiung, No. 700, Kaohsiung University Road, Nan-Tzu District, Kaohsiung 811, Taiwan. jlh888@mail.ncku.edu.tw.
⁷ Center for Micro/Nano Science and Technology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan. jlh888@mail.ncku.edu.tw.
⁸ Research Center for Energy Technology and Strategy, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan. jlh888@mail.ncku.edu.tw.

Abstract

Tin oxide (SnO_2-x) thin films were prepared under various flow ratios of O₂/(O₂ + Ar) on unheated glass substrate using the ion beam sputtering (IBS) deposition technique. This work studied the effects of the flow ratio of O₂/(O₂ + Ar), chamber pressures and post-annealing treatment on the physical properties of SnO₂ thin films. It was found that annealing affects the crystal quality of the films as seen from both X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. In addition, the surface RMS roughness was measured with atomic force microscopy (AFM). Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis was used to obtain the changes of elemental distribution between tin and oxygen atomic concentration. The electrical property is discussed with attention to the structure factor.

Keywords: SnO2; annealing; oxygen flow ratio; transparent conductive oxide (TCO).