Characteristics of ITO electrode grown by linear facing target sputtering with ladder type magnetic arrangement for organic light emitting diodes

The preparation and characteristics of indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes grown using a specially designed linear facing target sputtering (LFTS) system with a ladder type magnet arrangement for organic light emitting diodes (OLED) are described. It was found that the electrical and optical properties of the ITO electrode were critically dependent on the Ar/O2 flow ratio, while its structural and surface properties remained fairly constant regardless of the Ar/O2 flow ratio, due to the low substrate temperature during the plasma damage-free sputtering. Under the optimized conditions, we obtained an ITO electrode with the lowest sheet resistance of 39.4 Ω/sq and high transmittance of 90.1% (550 nm wavelength) at room temperature. This suggests that LFTS is a promising low temperature and plasma damage free sputtering technology for preparing high-quality ITO electrodes for OLEDs and flexible OLEDs at room temperature.