Structural, electrical and optical properties of radio frequency sputtered indium tin oxide thin films modified by annealing in silicon oil and vacuum

Indium tin oxide thin films (thickness ~ 300 nm) have been deposited on glass at the substrate temperature of 65 °C by radio frequency magnetron sputtering with the power density of 1.25 W cm− 2 under argon atmosphere and annealed subsequently in silicon oil at 200° and 350 °C to investigate systematically the effects on their structural, optical and electrical properties. As-deposited thin films after annealing at 350 °C exhibit marked changes in the microstructure with emergence of crystallites (average size ~ 51 nm), high optical transmittance (~ 86%) in the visible range, and electrical resistivity as low as 1.24 × 10− 3 Ω-cm with high figure of merit of 5.35 × 10− 3 Ω− 1 square - indicating their suitability as transparent conducting anode for opto-electronic devices. Further, the above findings are compared with those observed in case of films annealed in vacuum (~ 4 × 10− 4 Pa) at 350 °C.