Electrical and optical characteristics of indium tin oxide thin films deposited by cathodic sputtering for top emitting organic electroluminescent devices

This paper reports on RF cathodic sputtering of indium tin oxide (ITO) films under soft conditions. The aim is to allow for the deposition of the ITO anode onto organic or polymeric materials in inverted (top emitting) organic light emitting diodes (OLED). Electrical, optical and structural properties of ITO deposited at low temperature are first investigated. Then, we report on photoluminescence (PL) experiments in order to assess the influence of the plasma conditions for the deposition of ITO onto organic films. The influence of the discharge power density and of the substrate bias were particularly investigated. Finally, Al/PVK/PEDOT/sputtered ITO inverted diodes were fabricated and characterized in order to validate our processing conditions.