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Review of Transparent Conductive

Oxides (TCO)
Clark I. Bright, 3M Company, Tuscon, Arizona

Introduction
The first transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film was reported
by Badeker [1] in 1907, 100 years ago. This first TCO was a thin film of
CdO prepared by thermally oxidizing a vacuum sputtered film of cadmium metal. While CdO is not widely used today because of toxicity
concerns, it remains of theoretical interest because of its high electron
mobility apparently due to a low effective electron mass. Post-oxidation
of evaporated metal films to form the metal oxide was one of the earliest deposition methods for TCO. Tin Oxide (TO) was deposited by this
method at least as early as 1937 [2]. Transparent conductive (approximately 10 S cm-1) indium oxide (IO) made by post-oxidation of metal
thin films was reported in 1954 [3].
The first 50 years following the discovery of CdO saw little practical
development of TCO until the 1940s when a chemical deposition
method (pyrolysis) for TO, SnO2, from SnCl4 was developed [4], [5].
Transparent conductive IO also was made by chemical deposition
(pyrolysis) from InCl4 [6]. The early interest in SnO2 development was
for anti-static coatings and as a transparent electrode in electroluminescent panels. Applications of TO as a transparent heater film also were
important, particularly in aircraft windshields [4]. While there was,
of course, some research on other TCO during the time period, there
were few practical applications and little commercialization of thin film
TCO beyond that discussed here.
During the second 50 years after its discovery (i.e., since 1957),
TCO films have undergone very significant development and are seen
by most of us virtually everyday in applications ranging from digital
watches to computer screens or other types of displays. This chapter
will review the advances in TCO during the last 50 years, appropriately
for the 50th Anniversary of the Society of Vacuum Coaters, in 2007.

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Chapter 7 from 50 Years of Vacuum Coating Technology

and the Growth of the Society of Vacuum Coaters, edited
by Donald M. Mattox and Vivienne Harwood Mattox,
Society of Vacuum Coaters, 2007

of a metal oxide compound was known to be a more controllable process

than starting from the metal and providing all the oxygen for reaction, as
a gas. Before 1970, work on sintering powders of metal oxides for use as
sputtering targets to deposit TCO had begun. The hope was to obtain a
more controllable TCO deposition process than fully reactive sputtering
from metal alloy targets. In the 1970s Vossen [8] used oxidized targets
and RF diode sputtering to deposit TO and ITO. He found the optimum
In2O3/SnO2 target ratio to be 80/20 mole% for ITO. However, Vossen [7]
indicated that because of preferential resputtering of the deposited film
with RF sputtering, the target material composition is not typically the
same as the film. Fraser & Cook [9] used partially oxidized ITO targets
that were DC conductive for sputtering. They made thin films of ITO
from targets with various In2O3/SnO2 ratios (0 to 23 mole% SnO2) by
DC diode sputtering and analyzed the electrical and optical properties.
A plot of the resistivity, , versus the Sn/In ratio obtained for these ITO
films is shown in Figure 1.

50 Years of Development (1957 - 2007)

The most important TCO used in the last 50 years and today is tin
doped indium oxide, In2O3:Sn1 typically called indium-tin-oxide or
ITO. ITO is used as a transparent electrode in nearly all flat panel displays (FPDs), and this application represents the largest annual dollar
value for TCO thin film coatings. The important technological developments that have enabled this growth are reviewed chronologically.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, ITO was deposited mainly by vacuum
evaporation of In/Sn metal and by DC diode and RF sputtering of
metal In/Sn alloy targets. Process control was difficult if precise electrical and optical properties were required. Sputter deposition time
at a fixed power was typically used to control coating thickness. With
evaporation the visual detection of a specific color or color change was
used to determine the order of interference in the coating and estimate
thickness [7]. These reactive processes required oxygen-containing
background gas to react with the indium and tin atoms to form the
transparent oxides. Post oxidation with an oxygen containing gas was
often required as well. The oxidation process also required a high substrate temperature, usually > 300C and typically 400C500C, either
caused by the deposition process itself (e.g., diode sputtering) or added
to the process with substrate heaters, as in the case of evaporation.
With vacuum evaporation, starting with a partially oxidized (suboxide) or even a fully oxidized (stoichiometric) material for deposition

Figure 1. Resistivity of ITO films deposited by DC diode sputtering from various

Sn/In ratio ITO targets [9].

The substrate temperature during deposition was approximately

420C. The best ITO films reported by Fraser & Cook [9] exhibited =
1.77 x 10-4 ohm-cm (typical films were about 3 x 10-4 ohm-cm) and a
visible transmittance of approximately 85%. This combination of electrical and optical (E/O) properties for a TCO was the Gold Standard
for decades.
Ternary compounds involving CdO were investigated further after
cadmium tin oxide, Cd2SnO4, (CTO) was shown to be a good TCO in
the late 1970s [10, 11, 12]. However, CTO never became a widely used
TCO, probably because for good E/O properties a high substrate temperature (> 600C) or post treatment was required, which distorted ordinary soda-lime glass. Other obstacles included the difficulty in achieving
a single-phase material and the toxicity concerns with Cd.
Interest also was raised by successful deposition of ZnO:Al (ATO)
[13] and undoped ZnO films [14] with good E/O properties in the
1970s. The thermal instability of ZnO-based coatings prevented wide
spread application at this time. However, early successes lead to broad

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investigations of various dopants in ZnO and deposition methods

beginning in the 1980s [15].
Process control of reactive sputtering processes for TCO deposition
was still a problem in the 1980s. At least into the mid 1980s, one major
commercial supplier of ITO coated glass did not control the final ITO
properties during the reactive sputter deposition process, but chose to
oxidize the deposited film by a post-bake process in an oxygen environment. Two advantages cited for this two-step process were a faster
deposition cycle in the vacuum chamber and better control of the ITO
film properties in the post-bake processes. Even when an ITO batch
did not meet specifications, it was possible to trim the electrical properties by rebaking the batch in a suitable environment, either oxidizing
or reducing, to either increase or decrease the resistivity, respectively
[16].
Work continued in the 1980s on TCO of impurity doped binary
compounds (e.g., In2O3 and SnO2). Perhaps as significant as the TCO
materials research in the 1980s were the developments in vacuum
deposition hardware and equipment. Of particular importance was the
development and availability of the planar magnetron sputtering equipment. Previously, most TCO (e.g., ITO) deposition was performed in
batch processing by evaporation or diode sputtering on glass at high
temperature. But with planar magnetron sputtering, near room temperature roll-to-roll (web) coating of ITO on plastic film substrates was
practical. Sputter roll coaters designed for ITO coating became available from equipment manufactures [17]. Development of a computerized manufacturing system with process control (and software) for
reactive sputtering of ITO [18, 19] enabled manufactures to successfully
produce ITO by roll coating, which enabled its use in low-cost electro
luminescence (EL) lamps, liquid crystal displays (LCD), and other
applications.

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Another hardware development of significance was the improvement

of ceramic targets. While ceramic targets had been made for sputtering
at least, since the early 1970s, the development of commercial, highdensity (about 90%) targets [20] enabled the growth of glass and wide
web coating of ITO. A complementary development was the availability
of high-current DC magnetron power supplies with arc suppression
circuitry [21]. The combination of large ceramic ITO planar magnetron
targets and high-power arc-suppression power supplies permitted more
controllable ITO production by sputtering coating with high yield. This,
in turn supported the growth of the FPD market and the increased
demand for ITO deposition on large sheets of glass for transparent
electrodes.
Successful deposition of stable ZnO:Al (ATO) with good E/O
performance during the 1980s [22] fostered interest in the 1990s in
ternary compounds and multicomponent oxides, including ZnO. Some
examples of ternary TCO compounds are Zn2SnO4, ZnSnO3, MgIn2O4,
GaInO3, (GaIn)2O3, Zn2In2O5, and In4Sn3O12. Multicomponent oxides
made from two or more binary compounds (e.g., ZnO, In2O3, SnO2,
Ga2O3 and MgO) were explored as well in the 1990s [23]. Two of these
binary combinations, ZnO-In2O3 and ZnO-SnO2, have been extensively
investigated. The ZnO-SnO2 system was thought to be an analog of the
CdO-SnO2 system, which yielded the high performance TCO, Cd2SnO4.
However, the TCO investigated to date in the ZnO-SnO2 system have
not demonstrated low resistivity (< 10-3) even though two ternary compounds were identified.
As shown in Figure 2 on page 40, the development of indium zinc
oxide from the ZnO-In2O3 system was more successful, and many ternary compounds of the form ZnmIn2O3+m (m = 2-7) were demonstrated
[24]. The E/O performance of some of these TCO is nearly equivalent
to ITO.
continued on page 40

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Review of Transparent Conductive Oxides

continued from page 39

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using only TCO materials was fabricated on a glass substrate with the
structure, n+-ZnO/n-ZnO/p-SrCu2O2/ITO. The semiconducting materials, n-ZnO and p-SrCu2O2, were contacted with ohmic transparent
electrodes of n+-ZnO and ITO. The spectral transmittance of this p-n
junction is shown in Figure 3 [26, 27].

Transparent
pn junction
diode

Figure 2. Resistivity and carrier concentration of ZnO-In2O3 films with various

compositions [24].

Figure 3. Spectral transmission of TCO p-n junction diode and photograph of

text through the device (insert) [26, 27].

In the late 1990s, a p-type TCO, CuAlO2, with useful conductivity

(approximately 1 S cm-1) was reported [25]. The success with CuAlO2
lead to investigations of similar candidate p-type TCO materials. With
p-type TCO materials demonstrated, the fabrication of a transparent p-n
junction made exclusively from TCO materials was now a possibility.
The first experimental demonstration of a rectifying p-n junction diode

The diode had an average transmission of 70% in the visible spectrum. A photograph of the transparent junction with a text background
is shown in the inset to Figure 3. A typical current voltage (I-V) characteristic of the p-n heterojunction diode is shown in Figure 4 [26, 27].

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Figure 4. Typical I-V characteristic of TCO p-n junction diode [26, 27].

In 2000, a broad audience of workers in the field held a workshop

meeting to discuss the state-of-the-art in TCO, including p-type
materials. Selected papers from this meeting were published and these
provided a general topical reference on TCO activities at that time [28].
The new millennium brought a number of advances in both theoretical
understanding and experimental demonstration of TCO conductivity.
On the theoretical front, first principle calculations of band structure
have rigorously explained the free electron conductivity of tin doped
indium oxide. When an Sn atom replaces an In atom in the In2O3
structure, three s-like impurity bands are formed, and one of these
overlaps the conduction band of In2O3 and contains the Fermi level
and thus accounts for the metal like conductivity of ITO. Further, these
calculations also provided support for the Burstein-Moss effect [29].
A 1982 theoretical cluster model [30] explanation for how Sn defect
doping occurs in IO recently received experimental support [31]. The
cluster model states that at high oxygen partial pressure, two substitutional Sn cations and one interstitial O anion can form a neutral
defect cluster, reducing ITO conductivity. However, at low oxygen
partial pressure, some clusters can be broken by loss of the interstitial
oxygen, resulting in two conduction electrons from the now active
Sn dopants. The cluster model also showed that with highly reducing
conditions, oxygen vacancies become the important contribution to the
conductivity.
In 2001, Mo doped IO, In2O3:Mo (IMO), surprisingly, was shown
experimentally by Meng [32] to be a high-performance TCO. The

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lowest resistivity of 1.7 x 10-4 ohm-cm was achieved at a low carrier concentration (2 - 4 x 1020 cm-3) but very high electron mobility, exhibiting
values of approximately 100 cm2/V-s. The best mobility achieved for
IMO in this work was 130 cm2/V-s (glass substrate). It is interesting that
Mengs original motivation was to increase the carrier concentration, not
the mobility, by doping In2O3 with Mo6+ instead of Sn4+ [32, 33]. After
Mengs work, IMO became much studied by others using different deposition conditions and methods [34, 35, 36, 37]. These workers generally
found high mobility but not as high as reported by Meng. Also, in some
of this later work, it was shown that the electrically active dopant was
Mo4+ not Mo6+ or a mixture of Mo4+ and Mo6+ in their samples [34, 35,
36]. It is thought, as explained above for ITO, that a cluster model with
sensitivity to oxygen partial pressure may be at work in IMO [33, 34, 35,
36].
The experimental success of IMO also stimulated studies with other
transition metals (e.g., Ti and Zr) as potential dopants in IO [38, 39]
and in other hosts such as ZnO [40]. High-mobility TCO films were
demonstrated with several of these transition metal dopants using different deposition conditions and methods. Particularly good results were
found with In2O3:Ti (ITiO) using RF magnetron cosputtering with a
substrate temperature of about 550C and demonstrating a high mobility
of 83 cm2/V-s [38].
Recent theoretical work [41] using first-principles band structure
calculations has explained the unexpected success of IMO in achieving
high conductivity and low optical (visible) absorption as resulting from
a smaller increase in m* with increased carrier concentration because
of the magnetic exchange splitting of the Mo d-states into the two spin
states. Thus, carriers of one spin are only affected by (1/2) scattering
centers of like spin. This magnetic exchange splitting mechanism is
likely with other transition metals dopants also. The sensitivity to
oxygen partial pressure and its affect on the Mo dopant state in IMO
was shown by modeling to be related to a cluster mechanism similar to
but more complex than for ITO [41].
Perhaps even more surprising than the success of transition metal
dopants in known TOC hosts, is the experimental discovery of a new
TCO, niobium doped anatase titanium oxide, (Ti1-xNbxO2) [42]. TiOx
has been known to exhibit some very limited n-type conductivity but
has never been considered a viable TCO or TCO host material. The
reported performance of Ti1-xNbxO2 with x 0.03, deposited by pulsed
continued on page 42

Figure 5. Mechanical failure of ITO film tested by two methods [44].

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Review of Transparent Conductive Oxides

continued from page 41

laser deposition (PLD) at approximately 550C was a resistivity of 2

3 x 10-4 ohm-cm and about 98% internal transmittance (40 nm thick
film) in the mid visible spectrum. Carrier concentration was varied
over a wide range up to 2 x 1021 cm-3. The carrier concentration was
approximately 8 x 1020 cm-3 and the mobility was approximately 22
cm2/V-s for a composition with x 0.03. Even though the film was a
single crystal Ti1-xNbxO2 grown epitaxially on SrTiO3 substrates, the
demonstrated performance ITO in a first report is still amazing.
Another topic of recent and current interest for TCO development is
applications in flexible displays and electronics. The need for flexibility
has caused recognition of the importance of thin film mechanical properties and has driven work on mechanical characterization of ITO [43,
44]. The critical strain-to-failure of ITO (approximately 100 nm thick
film) was found to be about 1.5% as shown in Figure 5 [44].
The (critical) crack onset strain (COS) and the intrinsic crack onset
strain (COS*) versus ITO thickness are shown in Figure 6 (second
y-axis). Also shown in Figure 6 (first y-axis) is the internal stress of
the ITO coatings. The COS* value is a strain-to-failure including the
internal stress and internal cohesion of the ITO coatings. The corrected
COS, i.e. COS*, is the intrinsic value that shows the classical square
root of thickness behavior. The COS (and COS*) value is dominated by
material properties and therefore will not change greatly with the choice
of TCO (metal oxide).
The interest in flexible displays on temperature sensitivity plastic
substrates also has stimulated work on achieving lower resistivity with
ITO (TCO) deposited at approximately room temperature. The limited
temperature capability of plastic substrates requires process temperatures for the TCO well below optimum (ITO 200C).

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applications like organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs), photovoltaics

(PVs), and large areas where a low sheet resistance TCO transparent
electrode is needed. Note that the issues are not independent; for
example, increasing deposition temperature can reduce resistivity but
will increases strain in the TCO thin film. The possible benefits of
using a high-temperature plastic substrate, increased TCO thickness, and various deposition process choices, were examined in view
of display requirements. In general, no single solution was found to be
adequate. A viable solution to the need for high-performance transparent electrode(s) for flexible displays, solid state lighting, photovoltaic
devices, etc., may require a multilayer TCO [45, 47].

Figure 7. ITO film resistivity versus process temperature [46].

Figure 6. Crack onset strain COS) and intrinsic crack onset strain (COS*)
versus ITO film thickness [44].

These two issues (i.e., TCO mechanical properties and higher

resistivity on temperature sensitivity plastic substrates) and possible
solutions to them were examined in detail recently [45]. Typical lowtemperature process (near room temperature) yields amorphous ITO
-4
with resistivity approximately 5 6 x 10 ohmcm, where as hightemperature deposition processes produce polycrystalline ITO and a
-4
resistivity of approximately 1 - 2 x 10 ohmcm (see Figure 7) [46].
This increase in resistivity, i.e., decrease in conductivity by about
4 5x, is a serious problem for many flexible displays and electronics

The major current applications of TCO are magnetron-sputtered

ITO coated glass used as transparent electrodes for FPDs and pyrolitically deposited SnO2:F on float glass used as low-emissivity (low-e)
coatings for energy efficient windows. The spectrally selective properties of SnO2:F provide windows with high visible (and near infrared)
transmission and thermal insulation by limiting radiative heat loss (low
emissivity) from the interior. The FPD application of ITO is the largest
annual market (dollar value) for TCO, while low-e coatings account for
the largest deposited area of TCO coatings used annually. The largest
markets for ITO on plastic film are as transparent electrodes for EL
lamps and for touch panels. While ITO on plastic film is a small market
(approximately $100 million/year) compared to ITO on glass, it is set to
grow significantly in flexible displays and electronics applications.
Current and future application requirements are pushing for improve
TCO performance. For example, ITO patterned into finer lines for
next-generation display transparent electrodes require higher conductive
transparent electrodes to keep electrical losses down. Large area displays
and active signage similarly require higher conductive transparent electrodes to avoid visible changes in brightness across the screen. New current dependent emissive display technologies like OLEDs require much
higher conductive transparent electrodes than LCD and other E-field
based devices.
The growth of the energy generation market and the demand for
solar PV devices is also driving larger consumption of TCO for transparent electrodes. Further, because PV devices are obviously current

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devices and the power generated is area dependent, the need for low
electrical loss with high conductivity transparent electrodes is critical.
Additionally, a TCO with high transmittance of the solar spectrum to
which the device is sensitive is critical for efficiency. The new highmobility TCO discussed previously (e.g., IMO and ITiO) are attractive
in this application and superior to ITO because of their higher transmittance in the near infrared combined with high conductivity [32]. As
shown earlier, a TCO with much higher conductivity on temperature
sensitivity plastic substrates is required for flexible displays and electronics, including roll-to-roll coated PV devices. Thus, there is a need
for higher conductivity TCO, which is compatible with both high and
low temperature processes.

Future
Improving ITO conductivity
In the 35 years since the work of Fraser and Cook [9], the resistivity
achieved with ITO on glass has been reduced by < 2x. Fraser and Cook
reported a low (best) value of 1.77 x 10-4 ohm-cm. Today, approximately 1.2 x 10-4 ohm-cm is the best reproducible resistivity reported.
Occasionally, super samples are reported with a resistivity of about
4 8 x 10-5 ohm-cm [48, 49, 50]. In general, these results have not been
reproducible or in several cases the substrate was not glass but a lattice
matching material not suitable for general application either because of
cost or size or both.
How likely is it that an order of magnitude improvement will be
made in ITO resistivity? Of course, it is always highly risky to predict
the results of future work, but a 10x improvement and probably more
than about a 2x reduction in ITO resistivity on glass in the next decade
is unlikely. Consider the historical progress in reducing ITO resistivity
versus time, as shown in the Figure 8 [15].

Figure 8. Resistivity versus time (year) for various binary oxide TCO [15].

The plot for In2O3 includes results for Sn (ITO) and other dopants
and for various deposition methods. Note that in Figure 8 the slope
of the plot for improvement verses time in lowering ITO resistivity
appears to plateau at approximately 1 x 10-4 ohm-cm. Thus, it would
appear that further technological improvement in lowering ITO resistivity is limited. Also shown in Figure 8 are plots of the lowest resistivity
reported in the literature as a function of the reporting year for two
other TCO host materials, SnO2 and ZnO. Like ITO, SnO2 resistivity
appears to have reached a plateau, with little change in the last 25
years. However, the ZnO plot still appears to have a descending slope
of improvement verses time. Therefore, further technological improvement to reduce the resistivity may be possible.
continued on page 44

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Review of Transparent Conductive Oxides

continued from page 43

Our fundamental understanding of ITO conductivity has

been greatly improved by the recent accomplishments discussed.
Unfortunately, the theoretical first-principle methods do not yet permit
predictions of TCO performance, even for ITO. However, Bellingham
[51] has shown, based on calculations of the limit to mobility from
ionized impurity scattering (approximately 90 cm2/V-s) and with a
maximum carrier concentration of 2 x 1021 cm-3, to limit the plasma
wavelength outside the visible spectrum (800 nm), that ITO is limited
to an approximate resistivity of 4 x 10-5 ohm-cm. Note that this calculation is approximately applicable to other traditional metal-doped TCO
like ZnO:Al and SnO2:Sb. However, it is not applicable to these hosts
with transition metal dopants!

Alternatives to ITO
There is increasing emphases on not only developing a TCO with
higher conductivity but also with a material other than ITO (i.e.,
other than an In2O3 host). Two major concerns with ITO are the cost
and the potentially limited supply. Indium is currently obtained as a
byproduct of zinc mining. The question of how much indium is in the
Earths crust and if it can be economically extracted is hotly debated
[52]. The majority of indium used is as ITO transparent electrodes in
displays. Display manufacturers quest for ever-lower costs. They have
indicated that the ITO transparent electrode is the highest cost in the
display module, and it must be lowered to continue driving prices down
following the price-volume curve. TCO as transparent electrodes for
PV applications, discussed previously, is another very cost-sensitive
application.
Current candidate materials for a higher conductivity TCO include
the classic binary oxides of CdO, SnO2, In2O3, ZnO, with alternative
dopants, and combinations of these binaries, plus Ga2O3, in ternary,
quaternary, and even quintinary combinations of these five oxides [53].
While some work continues on CdO with alternative dopants and in
combinations with these other binaries, most applications avoid Cd
containing materials because of the toxicity, even though excellent
TCO performance can be obtained (e.g., CdO:In approximately 6 x
10-5 ohm-cm). Also, there is little work on alternative dopants for SnO2
because of the long history of such work with limited success (approximately 4 x 10-4 ohm-cm) as apparent from the SnO2 curve in Figure
8. However, work with SnO2 in combinations with the other binaries,
In2O3, ZnO, Ga2O3, is continuing.
Of the current candidate binary oxide TCO materials, ZnO is considered the prime candidate for a higher conductivity (i.e., continuing
the slope of minimum ZnO resistivity verses time in Figure 8) and to be
low cost. However, ZnO is more sensitive to oxygen than ITO, and process control is more difficult. Work continues on improving ZnO with
alternative impurity dopants. The lowest resistivity reported for various
dopants, through 2000, are summarized in reference [15]. Further, a
resistivity of < 1 x 10-4 ohm-cm, at least equivalent to ITO, has been
obtained with ZnO:Al (AZO) deposited by PLD [54]. However, PLD is
not considered a suitable deposition process for large-area substrates.
Considerable progress has been made in developing robust process control and scaling to large-area substrates in the preparation of AZO films
by DC and mid-frequency (MF) reactive magnetron sputtering using
metallic and ceramic (oxide) targets. However, the resistivity obtained
with these sputter deposited AZO film is approximately 3 x 10-4 cm or
higher, depending on film thickness and process choice [55, 56]. Both
ZnO:Al (AZO) and ZnO:Ga (GAO) are commercially available and in
use as translucent electrodes in thin film solar cells.
Work on ZnO in combinations with other binaries is also very

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active. Of course, results with the promising combination of In2O3 with

ZnO (see Figure 2), indium zinc oxide (IZO), are widely reported. Zinc
stabilized indium oxide, also called zinc-doped indium oxide and
indium zinc oxide is amorphous In2O3 with 10% ZnO. However,
because of the significant In2O3 (indium) content (about 75% to 95%)
in all of these IZO films, the issues of indium supply and cost are not
solved with these TCO films.
Thus, the TCO alternative to ITO is not so clear. It is unlikely that
a single TCO will be a universal replacement for ITO. Instead, there
is recognition that properties other than E/O ones (e.g., mechanical
properties, etch rate, work function) are also important in a specific
application. Examination of the function of the TCO (e.g., applied field
or current carrying transparent electrode, low-e energy-efficient coating
or electromagnetic interference shielding) can aid in the E/O tradeoff, followed by selection of the important properties other than E/O,
can lead to selection of the appropriate TCO for that application [57].
The use of ZnO-based materials (AZO and GZO) for the transparent
electrode in solar cells is an example of an alternative TCO that is now
superior to ITO in that application because of its properties other than
E/O. Therefore, any of the existing TCO technologies should be considered candidates for an alternative to ITO in a specific application.
For developing TCO films with improved E/O properties (versus
ITO), systematic exploration of the full periodic table should be undertaken, rather than limiting studies to (host) materials in neighboring
columns IIB and IIIA (except for Sn in IVA, which isnt a high-performance TCO host). The surprising discovery of TiO2:Nb shows the value
of a broader investigation (column IVB), rather than mixing of the
known binary TCO.
What is the potential for exceeding the ITO theoretical limit of
resistivity (approximately 4 x 10-5 ohm-cm) for traditional TCO deposited on typical glass substrates? My thoughts on this are as follows:
Finding new traditional binary TCO films that are significantly better
( 10x) than the current ones is not very likely.
Finding ternary compounds or multicomponent oxides that are
significantly better than the current ones may be a possibility.
Multicomponent TCO with layered structures achieve spatial separation of the carrier donors and carrier transport layers, thus, alleviating
scattering on the dopants [58]. Further, the isotropy of the electronic
properties can result in low, nearly constant effective masses [59].
These features are different than in traditional TCO and assumed in
the Bellingham calculation [51] of the ITO theoretical limit (i.e., traditional TCO theoretical limit).
Theoretically, using transition metals (i.e., magnetically mediated)
dopants with new or traditional binary TCO hosts can reduce the
traditional TCO theoretical limit by a factor of 2x [41], to approximately 2 x 10-5 ohm-cm, which is almost 10x better than the ITO in
industrial use.
Cage-structured materials have been suggested as a new class of TCO
offering the possibility of not compromising optical properties to
achieve good conductivity [60]. Theoretical band structure analysis
supports this possibility, although experimental results to date have
not achieved this goal. Similarly, certain nanoporous materials also
allow the theoretical possibility of high conductivity with 100%
transparency [59].
In summary, the possibilities for advancement in TCO performance
in the next decade are quite exciting.

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Previous Page | Contents | Zoom in | Zoom out | Front Cover | Search Issue | Next Page

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