Dispersion and microwave processing of nano-sized ITO powder for the fabrication of transparent conductive oxides |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Department, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA;2. Mechanical Engineering Department, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA;3. Clean Energy Research Center, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | Aqueous dispersions of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) nanopowder were prepared and the effect of the addition of PEG 400, Tween 80 and β-alanine as dispersants was investigated using zeta potential and particle size distribution measurements. Both PEG 400 and β-alanine were found to produce stable dispersions that were used to deposit ITO thin films on glass substrates by dip and spin coating methods. The ITO thin films were heat-treated using both conventional and microwave heat treatment in order to improve the inter-particle connections and hence the resistivity and transparency of the films. All the films exhibited an average transmittance of >80% over the visible spectrum after being subjected to the heat treatment process. ITO films prepared with no dispersant showed very high resistivity values for both heating methods, however addition of 2 wt% PEG 400 to the dispersion yielded a reduction in the resistivity values to 1.4×10?1 Ω cm and 3.8×10?2 Ω cm for conventionally and microwave treated films, respectively. The surface morphological studies confirmed that addition of dispersants improved the film uniformity and inter-particle connections of the ITO films considerably. |
| |
| Keywords: | Nanoparticles Thin films Indium/Indium compounds Transparent conducting oxides Dispersants/Dispersion |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
