Towards high quality ITO coatings: The impact of nitrogen admixture in HiPIMS discharges

The paper reports controlled deposition of optically transparent and electrically conductive ITO films prepared by a combination of rf (13.56 MHz) and High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) systems without any post deposition thermal treatment/annealing. It is shown that (i) reactive admixture of N2 gas to the process and (ii) pressure in the deposition chamber enable to optimize optical properties of ITO films. Furthermore, the changes of electrical resistivity were observed, too. The variation of these ITO properties is attributed to change of crystalline structure measured by XRD methods.