An investigation into the effects of oxygen plasma discharge on tin-doped indium oxide thin films

The surfaces of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) thin films for polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) were modified by oxygen plasma discharge. The properties of the ITO surfaces were evaluated by means of the measurements of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle, surface free energy and polarity. The influence of surface properties of the ITO thin films on the performance of polymer LECs was investigated in terms of the turn-on voltage, injection current and luminance. When oxygen plasma discharge was employed to modify the ITO surfaces, the surface properties of ITO are optimized due to the improvement of surface stoichiometry and the enhancement of wettability. And the improved surface properties benefited from the oxygen plasma discharge is observed to decay with the time after the plasma discharge. The difference in chemical composition, surface free energy and polarity between the non-treated and treated ITO surfaces appears to become smaller with the increase of the time after plasma discharge. In addition, the electrical and optical performance of the devices is found to become worse with the increasing time after plasma discharge on ITO substrates. The results demonstrate that the device performance strongly depends on the ITO surface properties and the ITO/organic interface characteristics.