Material Properties of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)
Indium tin oxide (ITO) is one of the most widely used transparent conducting oxides (TCO) because of its two main properties: its electrical conductivity and optical transparency. It is also a relatively inexpensive material and is easy to be deposited as a thin film on glass, PET, and other substrates. Thin films of indium tin oxide are most commonly deposited on surfaces by physical vapor deposition, such as the various sputtering techniques.
As with all transparent conducting films, a compromise must be made between conductivity and transparency, since increasing the thickness and increasing the concentration of charge carriers increases the material's conductivity, but decreases its transparency.
MSE Supplies is a leading supplier of ITO coated glass substrates and ITO coated PET films with a worldwide customer base. Many well known labs around the world have been using our ITO products in their research and product development projects. Both standard and customized (patterned) ITO substrates are available from MSE Supplies. Contact us today to discuss your project requirements.
A list of material properties of ITO is provided below for reference.
|
Property |
Value |
Reference |
|
Mass density |
6.8 g/cm3 |
J Vac Sci Tech A 19:5(2043-7); 2001 |
|
Young's modulus (sputtered, 10wt% SnO2) |
116 GPa |
Thin Solid Films 278:1-2(12-17); 1995 |
|
Poisson ratio (sputtered, 10wt% SnO2) |
0.35 |
Thin Solid Films 278:1-2(12-17); 1995 |
|
Stiffness Constants |
|
|
|
Tensile or fracture strength failure strain (105 nm film) failure strain (16.8 nm film) |
0.022 0.003 |
MRS Symp Proc 666 (F3.24.1 – 12); 2001 |
|
Residual stress on silicon (sputtered, 10wt% SnO2) |
-2.1 ~ -2.3 GPa |
Thin Solid Films 278:1-2(12-17); 1995 |
|
Specific heat |
|
|
|
Thermal conductivity |
|
Journal of Applied Physics 105, 073709 (2009) |
|
Dielectric constant |
|
|
|
Index of refraction (increases with anneal) |
~1.7 @633 nm 1.8 - 2.0 |
Appl Surf Sci 179:1-4(181-90); 2001 J Vac Sci Tech A 19:5(2514-21); 2001 |
|
Electrical conductivity (“standard” sputtered) (epi, 5.7wt% SnO2) |
~104 S/cm 1.3 x 104 S/cm |
Thin Solid Films 411:1(1-5); 2002 Vacuum 66:3-4(419-25); 2002 |
|
Magnetic permeability |
|
|
|
Piezoresistivity: gage factor (sputtered) (laser deposited) |
0.2 ~ -14.7 2.04 ~ -77.71 |
J Appl Phys 91:9(6194-6); 2002 Thin Solid Films 288 (279-286); 1996 |
|
Piezoelectricity |
|
|
|
Wet etching method |
oxalic acid HCl/HNO3 |
Langmuir 18:1(194-7); 2002 J Electron Mat 25:12(1806-17); 1996 |
|
Plasma etching method |
CH4/H2/Ar |
J Vac Sci Tech A 16:4(2177-86); 1998 |
|
Adhesion to silicon dioxide |
good – in pullofftests of 1000 Å ITO and 1300-30,000 Å SiO2, failures occurred in substrate rather than ITO/oxide. |
Appl Surf Sci 115:1(96-102); 1997 |
|
Biocompatibility |
no observed inhibition of cell growth; small amount of protein adsorption |
Proc IEEE/EMBS Conf on Microtechnologies in Medicine & Biology(261-4);2002 |
|
Hydrophobicity
advancing qc receding qr |
varies strongly with surface treatment 28.6°-96.5° 12.3°-49.3° |
J Appl Phys 86:5 (2774-8); 1999 |
