Low-stress indium–tin–oxide thin films rf magnetron sputtered on polyester substrates

Abstract

Using rf magnetron sputtering, we have grown low resistivity (∼3×10−4 Ω cm), high transparency (>80%) indium–tin–oxide thin films with near zero stress on polyester substrates, near room temperature. We concluded from analysis of sputtered ions and atoms that bombardment by energetic (>70 eV) negative oxygen ions caused high stress (∼1 GPa) in films grown at lower (6 mTorr) pressure. Sputtering at 12 mTorr dissipated energetic bombardment and reduced film stress to about zero, independent of oxygen partial pressure (pO2). However, increasing pO2 did affect film microstructure, that is, crystallinity, roughness, and grain size.

High-Performance Flexible Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Using Amorphous Indium Zinc Oxide Anode

“…There has been increasing activity for flexible organic lightemitting diodes ͑OLEDs͒ over the past few years, and it has focused on developing indium tin oxide ͑ITO͒-coated polymer substrates, such as polyethylene terephthalate ͑PET͒, [1][2][3][4][5] polycarbonate ͑PC͒, 6,7 polyimide, 8 polyethersulfone ͑PES͒, 9 polyethylene naphthalate ͑PEN͒, 9 and polycyclic olefin ͑PCO͒. 9 However, ITO electrode comes with its own set of problems such as chemical instability in a reduced ambient, poor transparency in the blue region, release of oxygen and indium into the organic layer, imperfect work function alignment with typical hole-transport layers, and easy deterioration of ITO targets.…”

Characteristics of flexible indium tin oxide electrode grown by continuous roll-to-roll sputtering process for flexible organic solar cells

“…For those reasons, the roll-to-roll sputtering technique has been the subject of considerable attention as a continuous TCO deposition process in the mass production of flexible organic solar cells. Although the electrical and optical properties of an ITO electrode deposited on various polymer substrates using the batch-type DC or RF sputtering have been reported, the characteristics of a flexible ITO electrode grown by the roll-to-roll sputtering process have not been investigated in detail [6,[16][17][18]. In this work, we investigated electrical, optical, structural, mechanical, and the surface properties of flexible ITO electrodes grown on a PET substrate using a specially designed roll-to-roll sputtering system for flexible solar cells.…”

Enhanced bending stability of carbon-nanotube-reinforced indium tin oxide films on flexible plastic substrates

“…9,10 As new applications of transparent conducting films are developed, performance demands increase. A key issue is electrical bending stability, or the need to minimize any change in electrical resistance under mechanical stress, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] for example, during bending. 16,17 Various solutions have been proposed, such as the use of mechanical buffer layers, either 0.1-m-thick polymeric resin layers or laminated layers under ITO films, 10,18 or the use of ITO nanoparticles, 19 or conducting polymers 20,21 in place of ITO.…”