Influence of Post Processing on Thermal Conductivity of ITO Thin Films |
| |
Authors: | Anna Kaź mierczak-Bał ata,Jerzy Bodzenta,Mohsen Dehbashi,Jeyanthinath Mayandi,Vishnukanthan Venkatachalapathy |
| |
Affiliation: | 1.Institute of Physics, Silesian University of Technology, Konarskiego 22B, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland;2.Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Blindern, P.O. Box 1048, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway;3.Department of Materials Science, School of Chemistry, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai 625021, India;4.Department of Materials Science, National Research Nuclear University “MEPhI”, 31, Kashirskoesh, 115409 Moscow, Russia |
| |
Abstract: | This work presents the influence of post processing on morphology, thermal and electrical properties of indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films annealed at 400 °C in different atmospheres. The commercially available 170 nm thick ITO layers deposited on glass were used as a starting material. The X-ray diffraction measurements revealed polycrystalline structure with dominant signal from (222) plane for all samples. The annealing reduces the intensity of this peak and causes increase of (221) and (440) peaks. Atomic force microscopy images showed that the surface morphology is typical for polycrystalline layers with roughness not exceeding few nm. Annealing in the oxygen and the nitrogen-hydrogen mixture (NHM) changes shapes of grains. The electrical conductivity decreases after annealing except the one of layer annealed in NHM. Thermal conductivities of annealed ITO thin films were in range from 6.4 to 10.6 W·m−1·K−1, and they were higher than the one for starting material—5.1 W·m−1·K−1. Present work showed that annealing can be used to modify properties of ITO layers to make them useful for specific applications e.g., in ITO based solar cells. |
| |
Keywords: | ITO thin films post processing thermal conductivity transparent conductive electrodes |
|
|