Low-temperature performance of solution-based transparent conducting oxides depending on nanorod composite for sn-doped in₂O₃ nanoinks

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) were fabricated using solution-based ITO (Sn-doped In₂O₃) nanoinks with nanorods at an annealing temperature of 200 °C. In order to optimize their transparent conducting performance, ITO nanoinks were composed of ITO nanoparticles alone and the weight ratios of the nanorods to nanoparticles in the ITO nanoinks were adjusted to 0.1, 0.2, and 0.5. As a result, compared to the other TCOs, the ITO TCOs formed by the ITO nanoinks with weight ratio of 0.1 were found to exhibit outstanding transparent conducting performance in terms of sheet resistance (~102.3 Q/square) and optical transmittance (~80.2 %) at 550 nm; these excellent properties are due to the enhanced Hall mobility induced by the interconnection of the composite nanorods with the (440) planes of the short lattice distance in the TCOs, in which the presence of the nanorods can serve as a conducting pathway for electrons. Therefore, this resulting material can be proposed as a potential candidate for solution-based TCOs for use in optoelectronic devices requiring large-scale and low-cost processes.