Simple preparation of nanoporous ITO film with novel sparking method

Abstract

We present a practical and simple method for the fabrication of nanostructured, highly transparent and conductive, porous tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) thin films via a novel sparking method. The pore structure consists of the densely packed secondary nanoparticles, which is the highlight of our sparking method, was observed through FE-SEM images. The crystallization and oxidation of the films occurred during the post-annealing process, where the XRD patterns confirmed the polycrystalline in nature and crystallizes in a cubic structure of In2O3. Our porous ITO films provide good conductivity with resistivity of 4.6 × 10−3 Ω.cm and large transmittance of 84% for films prepared at 160 s deposition time with an indium/tin atomic ratio of 90:10 and post-annealed at 500 °C for 3 h, which are potential materials for optoelectronic applications.