Control of preferred (222) crystalline orientation of sputtered indium tin oxide thin films

We report a two-step growth process for the fabrication of (222)-plane textured indium tin oxide (ITO) films. A thin ITO seed layer was grown in mixed Argon + Oxygen gases, followed by a thick ITO deposited in Argon gas. X-Ray diffraction shows that the sputtered ITO films exhibit strongly preferred (222) crystalline orientation. The (222)-plane textured ITO films have high transmittance above 80% in the visible range and carrier concentration, mobility and resistivity in the range of 1021 cm− 3, 40 cm2/Vs and 10− 4 Ω·cm, respectively. The surface roughness of our (222) textured ITO films is 1.4 nm, which is one of the smallest value obtained from sputtered ITO thin films.