Preparation of ITO Films by Sol-Gel Method with Different Concentration of In3+

The sols with different concentration of In3+ were prepared by dissolving different mass of In(NO)(3)center dot 4.5H(2)O in acetylacetone separately and adding SnCl4 center dot 5H(2)O with the mol proportion of In:Sn to 10:1, and then 1-10-layers ITO films were fabricated by dip-coating technique with quartz glasses as substrates; the 1-10-layer films were annealed at 500 degrees C for 1 hour after each dip-coating in air atmosphere. The morphological, structural, electrical and optical properties were investigated. The XRD results indicate that all the ITO films were polycrystalline with a cubic bixbyite structure; the variation of indium content in the sol can affect both the structure and properties of ITO films; the sheet resistance and transmittance decrease obviously with the increase of In3+ concentration within 5 layers, and the optimum In3+ concentration is 0.5238 mol/l for which the sheet resistance is relatively low and the transmittance is above 85% in the visible range.