Improving the characteristics of Sn-doped In₂O₂ grown at room temperature with oxygen radical-assisted electron beam deposition

Sn-doped In₂O₃ (Indium tin oxide, ITO) is widely utilized in numerous industrial applications due to its high electrical conductivity and high optical transmittance in the visible region. High quality ITO thin-films have been grown at room temperature by oxygen radical assisted e-beam evaporation without any post annealing or plasma treatment. The introduction of oxygen radicals during e-beam growth greatly improved the surface morphology and structural properties of the ITO films. The obtained ITO film exhibits higher carrier mobility of 43.2 cm²/V·s and larger optical transmittance of 84.6%, resulting in a higher figure of merit of ∼ 2.8 × 10⁻² Ω⁻¹, which are quite comparable to the ITO film deposited by conventional e-beam evaporation. These results show that ITO films grown by oxygen radical assisted e-beam evaporation at room temperature with high optical transmittance and high electron conductivity have a great potential for organic optoelectronic devices.