Present status of transparent conducting oxide thin-film development for Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO) substitutes

This paper describes the present status and prospects for further development of transparent conducting oxide materials for use as Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO) substitutes in the thin-film transparent electrodes of liquid crystal displays (LCDs), currently the largest use of ITO, and, thus, of indium. The best substitute material for the ITO transparent electrodes used in LCDs is impurity-doped ZnO, e.g., Al- and Ga-doped ZnO (AZO and GZO). From resource and environmental points of view, AZO is the best candidate. The most important problems associated with substituting impurity-doped ZnO for the ITO used in LCDs have already been resolved in laboratory trials. Under the present circumstances, (rf and dc)-magnetron sputtering (rf + dc-MS) deposition, both with and without H2 gas introduction, has been found to be the best deposition method to prepare impurity-doped ZnO thin films for practical use; AZO thin films with a resistivity on the order of 10− 4 Ω cm were prepared on glass substrates with an approximately uniform resistivity spatial distribution and a thickness above 100 nm. In order to improve the resistivity stability, AZO and GZO thin films co-doped with another impurity have been newly developed. A 50 nm-thick V-co-doped AZO (AZO:V) thin film was stable enough to be acceptable for use in practical transparent electrode applications. However, it seems likely that obtaining a stability comparable to that of ITO using impurity-doped ZnO will be difficult for thin films with a thickness below approximately 30 nm.