ESTIMATION AND VERIFICATION OF THE OPTICAL-PROPERTIES OF INDIUM TIN OXIDE-BASED ON THE ENERGY-BAND DIAGRAM

Indium tin oxide (ITO) is a transparent conducting material used in op toelectronic applications. In order to optimize the optical properties of ITO, it is necessary to determine these properties as a function o f the free carrier concentration (i.e., doping In2O3 with Sn). Based o n an ab initio Hartree-Fock calculation of the energy band diagram of indium oxide and indium oxide doped with tin, an empirical relationshi p of the electron effective mass as a function of the ideal free carri er concentration is established. The importance of the varying electro n effective mass in the prediction of the complex dielectric function, the refractive index, extinction coefficient, and finally the optical transmission based on Drude's theory is shown here by comparing the e stimated results with measured and published results. The agreement be tween estimated values and measured or published experimental results is very good. (C) 1996 American Vacuum Society.