Effect of annealing on structural, optical, and electrical properties of nickel (Ni)/indium tin oxide (ITO) nanostructures prepared by RF magnetron sputtering

• Published in: Superlattices and Microstructures
• Main Author: Sobri M.; Shuhaimi A.; Hakim K.M.; Ganesh V.; Mamat M.H.; Mazwan M.; Najwa S.; Ameera N.; Yusnizam Y.; Rusop M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Academic Press 2014
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84897405033&doi=10.1016%2fj.spmi.2014.02.010&partnerID=40&md5=7a17598b8fe51220375c51f97c7a2b83

Nickel (Ni)/indium tin oxide (ITO) nanostructures were deposited on glass and silicon (1 1 1) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering using nickel and ITO (In-Sn, 90-10%) targets. The post-deposition annealing has been performed for Ni/ITO films in air. The effect of annealing temperature on the electrical, optical and structural properties of ITO films was studied. We found the appearance of (6 2 2) peak in addition to (4 0 0) and (2 2 2) major peaks, which indicates an enhancement of the film crystallinity at high temperature annealing of 650 °C. The samples show higher transmittance of more than 90% at 470 nm after annealing which is suitable for blue light emitting diode (LED) application. The optical energy bandgap is shifted from 3.51 to 3.65 eV for the Ni/ITO film after annealing at 650 °C. In addition, increasing the annealing temperature improves the film electrical properties. The resistivity value decreases from 3.77 × 10-5 Ω cm to 1.09 × 10 -6 Ω cm upon increasing annealing temperature. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.