ADVANCED INDIUM TIN OXIDE CERAMIC SPUTTERING TARGETS AND TRANSPARENT CONDUCTIVE THIN FILMS

Highly electrically conductive and transparent thin films are widely used as electrode layers in optoelectronic devices, such as flat panel displays, solar cells, electrochromic devices and antistatic conductive films. The films may be produced by magnetron sputtering technique that requires a fine-tune deposition process and high quality sputtering targets. Dense indium tin oxide (ITO) ceramics are one of the most reliable materials for sputtering targets. Umicore Indium Products (UIP) has a strong experience in the development and manufacturing of ITO ceramics using in-house prepared In2O3 powders. The challenges of ceramic composition and manufacturing are considered; they include the use of high quality starting materials, especially In2O3 powders, with respect to purity, morphology and sinterability, manufacturing routes and sintering process. The obtained ITO ceramics have a high purity, uniform microcrystalline structure, high density up to 99+% of TD and low specific electrical resistivity. Using manufactured sputtering targets, which may be made as large tiles with areas of 1000-1700 cm(2), and a fine-tune optimized sputtering process, high quality electrically conductive transparent films with nano-crystalline or amorphous structures are obtained. Physical properties of ITO ceramics and thin films are reported.