GROWTH AND MICRO STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF IN2O3 THIN FILMS PREPARED BY ELECTRON BEAM EVAPORATION TECHNIQUE

Veeraswamy.Y, Mohankumar.T, Vijayakumar.Y, Ramana Reddy.M.V

Abstract: High purity Indium oxide powder was used to prepare In2O3 thin films using electron beam evaporation technique. Ultrasonically cleaned substrates were used for the deposition of In2O3 thin films. Well-defined and good quality In2O3 thin films were formed by maintaining substrate temperatures between 300K-573K. The thin films were characterized using XRD, SEM, AFM, EDS and UVVIS spectroscopy, to study the effect of substrate temperature on the properties of In2O3 thin films. The XRD patterns suggest that the films deposited at room temperature are amorphous in nature. The crystalline nature of the films increases with increase in substrate temperature and it was found that the films crystallizes in a cubic structure with preferred (2 2 2) orientation. Thickness of the films was found from cross sectional view of SEM images. Optical transmission measurements were carried out using UVVIS spectrophotometer in the wavelength range 300-1000nm and it was confirmed that these thin films exhibits good transparency and it was noticed that the transmittance was decreased with increasing substrate temperature. Surface morphology studies of the films, using AFM, reveal the formation of nanostructured indium oxide thin films. The results obtained in the present work was presented and discussed.

Keywords: In2O3 thin film, AFM, XRD, electron beam evaporation, transmittance.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0419002