Growth and transparent conductive properties of ITO films on flexible polyimide (PI) substrates

ITO films are deposited on flexible polyimide (PI) substrate by DC magnetron sputtering, and its structural and electrical properties are systematically investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Hall effect measurement (HL) and UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The results indicate that the sputtering power and deposition pressure are the dominant factors influencing the transparent conductive properties of as-grown ITO films on PI substrates, and the effect mechanism of the sputtering power and the deposition pressure are systematically investigated. The high performance ITO transparent conductive film with the visible transparency of 86% and the average resistivity of 3.1 × 10-4 Ω &middot cm are successfully achieved at the optimized parameters(sputtering power of 100W and deposition presure of 0.4Pa).