Micromorphology analysis of sputtered indium tin oxide fabricated with variable ambient combinations

Micromorphology analysis of sputtered indium tin oxide fabricated with variable ambient combinations. Abstract This study experimentally investigates the fractal nature of the 3-D surface morphology of sputtered indium tin oxide (ITO) fabricated with five sets of ambient combinations. The samples were prepared on glass substrates by DC magnetron sputtering using argon, argon with oxygen, argon with oxygen and nitrogen, argon with oxygen and hydrogen and argon with oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen ambient compositions at room temperature and the films were annealed at 450 °C in air. The characterization of the films surfaces was carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The XRD results indicate that the cubic ITO films form with highly preferable (222) and (400) orientations. The AFM images were analyzed using the Areal Autocorrelation Function (AACF) and pseudo-topothesy K. This analysis revealed that these samples are well described as fractal structures at nanometer scale.