Effect of cerium doping on the microstructure and photoelectric properties of Ce-doped ITO films

In this paper, the Ce-doped ITO films were successfully deposited using ITO targets with 0-2.0 wt% of CeO2. Various analytical methods were adopted to investigate the effect of cerium doping on the microstructure and photoelectric properties of the films. It is found that (1) In an Ar atmosphere, grains prefer to grow along the [1 0 0] direction, and the preferential growth becomes more intensified with the increase in the deposition time, but the grain growth direction of ITO films will gradually be changed to the [1 1 1] direction with the increase in the doping amount of CeO2; (2) Ce doping can weaken the crystallinity, reduce the surface roughness and enhance the density of ITO films; (3) The addition of cerium can reduce the oxygen loss of thin films but cannot change the elemental chemical states of In, Sn and O; (4) Both the transparency and electrical conductivity of the 0.5 wt% Ce-doped ITO films are superior to those of the pure ITO films; (5) The scattering effects on the carriers in the amorphous Ce-doped ITO films and the polycrystalline films are mainly derived from the surface scattering and the ionized impurity scattering, respectively.