Annealing effects on properties of antimony tin oxide thin films deposited by RF reactive magnetron sputtering

Antimony tin oxide (ATO) films were sputtered on glass substrates using RF reactive magnetron sputtering at a power of 100 W, a substrate temperature of 300 °C and an oxygen flow rate ranging from 7 to 20 sccm. The films were annealed for 1 h in oxygen and nitrogen atmospheres at temperatures of 300, 400 and 500 °C. Annealing effect was studied by comparing the electrical and optical properties of the annealed and unannealed films.