Fabrication of highly transparent and conductive indium-tin oxide thin films with a high figure of merit via solution processing

Abstract

Deposition technology of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) thin films is critical for high performance of optoelectronic devices. Solution-based fabrication methods can result in substantial cost reduction and enable broad applicability of the TCO thin films. Here we report a simple and highly effective solution process to fabricate indium-tin oxide (ITO) thin films with high uniformity, reproducibility, and scalability. The ITO films are highly transparent (90.2%) and conductive (ρ = 7.2 × 10-4 Ω·cm) with the highest figure of merit (1.19 × 10 -2 Ω-1) among all the solution-processed ITO films reported to date. The high transparency and figure of merit, low sheet resistance (30 Ω/sq), and roughness (1.14 nm) are comparable with the benchmark properties of dc sputtering and can meet the requirements for most practical applications. © 2013 American Chemical Society.