AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Transparent Conductors and Printable Electronics Focus Topic Thursday Sessions
       Session TC+AS+EM-ThM

Paper TC+AS+EM-ThM5
Composition Control of Electron Beam Deposited Nb-TiO2 Thin Films

Thursday, November 3, 2011, 9:20 am, Room 106

Session: Transparent / Printable Electronics Part 1
Presenter: Nicole Beckers, University of Alberta, Canada
Authors: N.A. Beckers, University of Alberta, Canada
R.T. Tucker, University of Alberta, Canada
M.D. Fleischauer, NRC-National Institute for Nanotechnology, Canada
M.J. Brett, University of Alberta, Canada
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Nb-doped TiO2 has been identified as a potential indium-free transparent conductor, and has been fabricated by pulsed laser deposition and sputtering with good success.1,2 Other deposition methods, such as electron beam evaporation, are of interest for this material but have had limited demonstration to date. It would be advantageous to be able to use electron beam evaporation because in addition to planar films, the collimated flux allows for structured thin films via glancing angle deposition (GLAD). Composition control is essential for doped functional materials, which is typically difficult to obtain through physical mixing of source materials. Here we show that using a sol gel approach to prepare the source materials provides a possible route to circumvent this issue. The facile, solution based sol gel process for the synthesis of ceramic and glassy materials allows for precise composition control by controlling the amounts and ratios of the metal oxide precursors. A sol gel methodology was used to prepare a series of Nb-doped TiO2 deposition source materials with the following compositions: Nb0.06Ti0.94O2, Nb0.12Ti0.88O2, and Nb0.24Ti0.76O2. We will show that XPS results confirm the composition of the electron beam deposited films and reflects the composition of the source materials. Premixed powders of Nb2O5 and TiO2 do not show the same translation of composition as the sol-gel derived source material. Details on the effects of the post-deposition annealing environment on the thin film optical and electrical properties will also be presented.

References:

1. Yamada, N.; Hitosugi, T.; Hoang, N. L. H.; Furubayashi, Y.; Hirose, Y.; Konuma, S.; Shimada, T.; Hasegawa, T. Thin Solid Films 2008, 516, 5754-5757.

2. Ishida, T.; Okada, M.; Tsuchiya, T.; Murakami, T.; Nakano, M. Thin Solid Films 2011, 519, 1934-1942.