Comparative study of the characteristics of ITO targets prepared from two different forms of raw material powders

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films are widely used in display devices, solar cells, gas sensors, etc, because of their excellent properties. The preparation of high-quality ITO thin films by sputtering requires ITO targets with high purity, high density, uniform organization and good electrical conductivity, and the choice of raw material powder to prepare high-quality ITO targets has been a highly controversial topic. To obtain high-quality ITO sputtering targets, this study used indium tin oxide (ITO) powder and indium oxide-tin oxide hybrid powder as raw materials to produce the corresponding ITO targets by cold sintering and microwave sintering. By analyzing the phase structure, microscopic morphology, density, conductivity and elemental distribution, the performance differences of the ITO targets prepared from the two different powders under the same cold sintering-microwave sintering conditions were compared. The results show that the ITO targets made from the indium oxide-tin oxide mixture exhibit higher densities, better electrical properties and finer grains. The targets made from the two different forms of raw materials show a uniform component distribution. The above results are in favor of improving the quality of ITO targets and reducing the production cost.