Transparent conductive tin oxide films by photochemical vapour deposition

Photochemical vapour deposition (photo-CVD) is expected to be a damage-free process at low temperature. Transparent conductive tin oxide (non-doped) films have been prepared by the photo-CVD process under various deposition conditions. TMT (Sn (CH3)4) and O2 (containing 4 mol.% O3) were used as the raw materials and a low-pressure mercury lamp was used as the light source. By the combination of linearly focused low-pressure mercury lamp light through a semi-cylindrical suprasil window and a reciprocation motion of the substrate, a good uniformity of the film thickness along an 8 × 10 cm area was realised. The growth rate was proportional to both the substrate temperature and the TMT flow rate. The minimum resistivity of ~ 7 × 10−3 Ω cm was obtained at a substrate temperature of 250 °C.