Influence of Rapid Thermal Annealing on the Opto-Electrical Performance of Ti-doped Indium Oxide Thin Films

Titanium (Ti) doped indium oxide (In₂O₃) films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering and the films were rapid thermal annealed at 100, 200, and 300℃, respectively to investigate the influence of the rapid annealing on the opto-electrical performance of the films. The grain size of In₂O₃ (222) plane increased with annealing temperatures and their electrical resistivity decreased to as low as 8.86×10^-4 Ωcm at 300℃. The visible transmittance also improved from 77.1 to 79.5% when the annealing temperature increased. The optical band gap of the TIO films shifted from 4.010 to 4.087 eV with increases in annealing temperature from room temperature to 300℃. The figure of merit shows that the TIO films annealed at 300℃ had better optical and electrical performance than the other films prepared using lower-temperature or no annealing.