Effect of Annealing Temperature and Oxygen Flow in the Properties of Ion Beam Sputtered SnO(2−x) Thin Films

Tin oxide (SnO(2−x)) thin films were prepared under various flow ratios of O(2)/(O(2) + Ar) on unheated glass substrate using the ion beam sputtering (IBS) deposition technique. This work studied the effects of the flow ratio of O(2)/(O(2) + Ar), chamber pressures and post-annealing treatment on the physical properties of SnO(2) thin films. It was found that annealing affects the crystal quality of the films as seen from both X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. In addition, the surface RMS roughness was measured with atomic force microscopy (AFM). Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis was used to obtain the changes of elemental distribution between tin and oxygen atomic concentration. The electrical property is discussed with attention to the structure factor.