Study on adhesion and electro-optical properties of ITO films on flexible PET substrate

High-quality ITO films on flexible PET substrate were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering at low deposition temperature with different Ar gas sputtering pressure.Adhesion and electro-optical properties of ITO films were investigated as a function of Ar partial pressure.The sputtering conditions provide very uniform ITO films with high transparency (＞85% in 400-760 nm spectra) and low electrical resistivity (1.408×10-3-1.956×10-3 Ω·cm).Scratch test experiments indicate that there is a good adhesion property between ITO films and PET substrate, the critical characteristic load increases from 16.5 to 23.2 N with increasing Ar sputtering pressure from 0.2 to 1.4 Pa.