• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.354-355
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• 2005

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film was polished by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) by the change of process parameters for the improvement of electrical and optical properties of ITO thin film. Light transparent efficiency of ITO thin film was improved after CMP process at the optimized process parameters compared to that before CMP process.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.151-153
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• 2005

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film was polished by chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) by the change of process parameters for the improvement of electrical and optical properties of ITO thin film. Light transparent efficiency of ITO thin film was improved after CMP process at the optimized process parameters compared to that before CMP process.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.741-746
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• 2009

Compare to conventional Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) film deposition methods, cesium assisted sputtering method has been shown superior electrical, mechanical, and optical film properties. However, it is not easy to use cesium assisted sputtering method since ITO film properties are very sensitive to Cesium assisted equipment condition but their mechanism is not yet clearly defined physically or mathematically. Therefore, to optimize deposited ITO film characteristics, development of accurate and reliable process model is essential. For this, in this work, we developed ITO film deposition process model using neural networks and design of experiment (DOE). Developed model prediction results are compared with conventional statistical regression model and developed neural process model has been shown superior prediction results on modeling of ITO film thickness, sheet resistance, and transmittance characteristics.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.393-400
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• 2012

The characteristics of indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film deposited on polyethersulfone (PES) film by low temperature E beam has been studied for the flexible photovoltaic devices. It was found that the substrate temperature in the deposition process affected the crystallization behavior of ITO during the post low temperature annealing process. Higher substrate temperature resulted in the increase of crystallinity of annealed ITO. Consequently, the lowering of sheet resistivity and better transmittance were obtained. Crystallization of ITO during the annealing process was facilitated by using oxygen gas in the deposition process and resulted in the enhancement on sheet resistivity and transmittance of ITO. The surface roughness of PES film prohibited the crystallization of ITO during the annealing process and it caused the increase of sheet resistivity and the decrease of transmittance of ITO.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.83-86
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• 2010

The transparent electrode properties of ITO films deposited by RF magnetron sputtering with process pressure were investigated. The ITO thin films was deposited on a glass substrate using a target with 3in diameter sintered at a ratio of $In_2O_3$ : $SnO_2$ (9 : 1). 200-nm-thick ITO thin films were manufactured by various process pressures ($2.0{\times}10^{-2}$, $7.0{\times}10^{-3}$ and $2.0{\times}10^{-3}$ Torr). The optical transmittance and resistivity of the deposited ITO thin films showed a relatively satisfactory result under $10^{-2}$ Torr. For high process pressure, the optical transmittance was below 80%, while for low process pressure, the optical transmittance was above 85%. As a result of of mobility, resistivity and carrier concentration by Hall measurement, we obtained satisfactory properties to apply into a transparent conducting thin film.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.450-457
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• 2008

The objectives of this study were the development of a synthesis technique for highly active nanosized ITO powder and the understanding of the reaction mechanisms of the ITO precursors. The precipitation and agglomeration phenomena in ITO and $In_{2}O_{3}$ precursors are very sensitive to reaction temperature, pH, and coexisting ion species. Excessive $Cl^-$ ion and $Sn^{+4}$ ions had a negative effect an synthesizing highly active powders. However, with a relevant stabilizing treatment the shape and size of ITO and $In_{2}O_{3}$ precursors could be controlled and high density sintered products of ITO were obtained. By applying the reprecipitation process (or stabilization technique), highly active ITO and $In_{2}O_{3}$ powders were synthesized. Sintering these powders at $1500^{\circ}C$ for 5 hours produced 97% dense ITO bodies.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.158-163
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• 2004

ITO thin film was deposited on the glass by RF magnetron sputtering. Dependance of the process parameters such as thickness, target-to-substrate distance, substrate temperature and oxygen partial pressure on the transmittance and electrical resistance of ITO film were investigated. The deposition conditions for getting better optical and electrical ITO characteristics were the 1800-$2300\AA$ thickness, 65mm substrate-to-target distance, $350^{\circ}C$ substrate temperature and 8% oxygen partial pressure. At these conditions, the transmittance and sheet resistance of the ITO film were 83.3% and 77.86Ω/$\square$, respectively.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2004

The Indium Tin Oxide(ITO) nano powders were prepared by spray drying and heat treatment process. The liquid solution dissolved Indium and Tin salts was first spray dried to prepare chemically homogeneous recursor powders at the optimum spray drying conditions. Subsequently, the precursor powders were subjected to eat treatment process. The nano size ITO powders was synthesized from the previous precursor powders and the npuities also were decreased with increasing heat treatment temperature. Furthermore, the lattice parameter of TO nano powders was increased by doping Tin into Indium with increasing heat treatment temperature. The par icle size of the resultant ITO powders was about 20∼50nm and chemical composition was composed of In:Sn =86:10 wt.％ at 80$0^{\circ}C$.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.13-16
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• 2014

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) has been used widely for transparent conducting thin films. In this work, the feasibility of a laser sintering process to fabricate ITO thin films on flexible substrates is examined. Nanoparticles of ~10 nm were spin coated on a Si wafer and then sintered by a KrF excimer laser. The sintered structure was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. Polycrystalline structures were fabricated by the process without thermally damaging the substrate. The electrical resistivity of the film was reduced to ~ 1/1000 of the initial value. This work demonstrates that nanosecond laser sintering of ITO particles can be a useful tool to fabricate ITO films on various flexible substrates.