Deposition and Application of Indium-Tin-Oxide Films for Defrosting Windscreens

Abstract

The plasma-activated reactive evaporation technique was used for the formation of indium-tin-oxide (ITO) films. The ITO films were deposited on a heated (up to 350 °C) glass substrates using various mass ratios of indium and tin. The optical and electrical properties of the deposited ITO films were determined. The influence of the indium-to-tin mass ratio on the optical transmittance, bandgap, resistivity and resistance of ITO films was investigated. The bandgap of ITO films was increased from 3.18 to 3.37 eV, and the MIn/MSn ratio increased from 4.25 to 10.00. The average values of optical transmittance at the visible light wavelengths increased from ~43% to ~64% as tin mass was reduced. We demonstrated that ITO films with low resistivity ranging from 7.4 × 10−3 to 43.7 × 10−3 Ω·cm were obtained, and the MIn/MSn ratio changed from 4.25 to 10.00. The ITO film formed at the 9.25 MIn/MSn ratio demonstrated high transparency, a wide bandgap and optimal resistivity and resistance values. The heating characteristics indicated that the frozen ice on the ITO films was completely removed after 30 s when the applied voltage was 24 V.

Overall aspect for designing magnetron sputtering plasma sources and their applications in the deposition of ITO films

“…[1][2][3] The plasma-assisted MS process has become a good choice to develop flexible ITO films for industry applications. 3 Although several other methods like thermal evaporation, [5][6][7][8][9][10] electron beam (e-beam) evaporation, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), [31][32][33][34][35][36] activated reactive evaporation (RE), [37][38][39][40][41][42] pulsed laser deposition (PLD), atomic layer epitaxy (ALE), [71][72][73][74][75] sol-gel, [76][77]…”

The Influence of Lyophobicity and Lyophilicity of Film-Forming Systems on the Properties of Tin Oxide Films

“…SnO 2 thin films possess exceptional properties, including a wide bandgap (Eg = 3.6 eV), n-type conductivity, transparency of more than 80% in the visible wavelength range, chemical stability, and others [1][2][3]. As a result, SnO 2 has been widely used in various applications such as solar cells [4][5][6], gas sensors [7][8][9], transistors [10][11][12], optoelectronic devices, and transparent conductive electrodes [13][14][15].…”

Multifunctional Zn-Doped ITO Sol–Gel Films Deposited on Different Substrates: Application as CO2-Sensing Material

“…The sensors can also detect humidity [29,30]. For these applications, the films were optimized by controlling various parameters such as the annealing temperature [31][32][33][34], substrate type [35][36][37][38], deposition method [39][40][41][42][43], and doping [44][45][46][47][48]. Regarding the deposition method, the ITO thin films were most frequently prepared using physical methods.…”