Effects of substrate temperature on the properties of the indium tin oxide thin films deposited by sputtering method

High-quality transparent conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films were deposited on glass substrates using radio frequency sputtering method. The structure and electrical and optical properties of the ITO thin films were mainly investigated. The ITO thin films showed strong diffraction peak having a preferred orientation along the [111] direction as the deposition temperature at 120 to 160 °C. In the transmission spectra, the optical transmittance increased in the visible range as the deposition temperature increased from RT to 160 °C. A minimum resistivity of 3.06×10-3 Ω-cm was obtained for the ITO thin film deposition at 160 °C