Using the photolysis of chemically modified gel films preparing ITO fine patterned thin films

A novel technique for the fabrication of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) fine patterning in sol-gel technology is presented in this paper. The fabricated ITO fine patterning could be obtained through a process which combines film fabrication with film etching. ITO films have good comprehensive property of visible transmittance and electrical conductivity, consequently they have been extensively used as coating electrodes. Indium nitrate (In(NO
₃
)
₃
.4.5H
₂
O) and stannic chloride ( SnCl
₄
.5H
₂
O) were used as starting materials which were modified with benzytone (BzAcH). The chelate complexes containing indium ions were produced during the process which of forming photosensitive ITO/BzAcH gel films through sol-gel technique. It was found that the gel films are sensitive to both the ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation and their solubility on solvents as well. For example, ethanol was reduced remarkably while the UV absorption peak disappeared with the dissociation of the chelate complexes correspondingly by means of UV-vis and IR spectrophotometers. Utilizing these characteristics, a fine pattern was obtained by irradiation of UV light on the ITO/BzAcH gel films through a pattern mask. of the fine patterned ITO films were heat treated at 500degC for 15 min, the optical, electrical properties and the surface element components were examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra in this work