Surface morphology and crystal quality of low resistive indium tin oxide grown on yittria-stabilized zirconia

Highly electrically conductive (resistivity: ${\text{1×10}}^{\text{−4}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\Omega }\mathrm{cm})$ indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films were grown heteroepitaxially on (111) and (100) surfaces of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) at a growth temperature of 900 °C using a pulsed-laser deposition technique, and their crystal quality and surface morphology were evaluated by using high-resolution x-ray diffraction and an atomic force microscope. Higher growth temperature, the use of a cleaved surface as a substrate, and an increase in oxygen pressure are essential to fabricate an ITO thin film with an atomically flat surface. The full width at half maximum of out-of-plane x-ray rocking curves of ITO (222) grown on YSZ (111) and of ITO (400) on YSZ (100) were 54 and 720 arcseconds, respectively, which indicates that (111)-oriented ITO films exhibited higher crystal quality than (100)-oriented ITO films. The ITO film was grown on YSZ (111) by the three-dimensional spiral growth mode, with flat terraces and steps corresponding to (222) plane spacing of 0.293 nm, and the grain size was reduced with increasing oxygen pressure during ITO film growth, to improve overall surface flatness. On the other hand, only a columnar structure was observed in the (100)-oriented ITO film surface.