Indium Tin Oxide

The screen you are reading conducts electricity through a film you cannot see. That film is indium tin oxide — the most successful transparent conductor ever manufactured, with resistivity as low as 7.4×10⁻⁵ Ω·cm, visible transmittance above 90%, and three decades of process engineering behind it. Displays, touch sensors, OLEDs, heterojunction solar cells and smart windows all still specify ITO first.

Eata Energy supplies the material from the source: high-density ITO sputtering targets in 90/10, 95/5 and 97/3 compositions, planar tiles and rotary tubes bonded to copper, plus ITO powders, coated glass and PET substrates for research and pilot lines. Every target ships with density, purity and composition certificates.

Planar ITO sputtering targets bonded to copper backing plates

What Is Indium Tin Oxide?

Indium tin oxide is tin-doped indium oxide — typically 90 wt% In₂O₃ to 10 wt% SnO₂ — and a textbook degenerate n-type semiconductor. Substitutional Sn⁴⁺ donors and oxygen vacancies push carrier concentration beyond 10²⁰ cm⁻³, driving the Fermi level into the conduction band: the material conducts like a metal while its ≈3.75 eV band gap keeps it transparent across the visible. Push carrier density further and the plasma edge moves into the near-infrared, so the same coating that passes light also reflects heat. In bulk form ITO is a pale yellow-green ceramic; as a 150 nm film it is essentially invisible.

ITO Grades We Supply

Compositions other than those listed are available on request; density ≥95% of theoretical on all targets.

Key Properties of Indium Tin Oxide

• Benchmark transparent conductor — sputtered ITO films routinely reach 1–2×10⁻⁴ Ω·cm (best reported 7.4×10⁻⁵) with 85–95% visible transmittance; sheet resistance below 10 Ω/sq at useful thicknesses is production-standard.
• Degenerate by design — Sn donors and oxygen vacancies deliver >10²⁰ cm⁻³ carriers at 20–60 cm²/V·s mobility, so conductivity scales with doping without sacrificing clarity.
• Built-in infrared reflection — the plasma wavelength sits beyond ≈1 μm, letting ITO pass daylight while reflecting heat: the physics behind low-emissivity glazing and heated windows.
• The OLED's favorite anode — a 4.4–4.9 eV work function aligns with organic hole-injection layers, and the smooth, wet-etchable film patterns into the finest display pixels.
• Process maturity — DC, pulsed-DC and RF magnetron sputtering from ceramic targets, at room temperature or ≤300 °C, on glass, PET or silicon — the most documented TCO process in industry.
• Recyclable indium — spent targets and chamber scrap are reclaimed and refined back into new targets, keeping a scarce metal in circulation.

Available Forms

• Planar targets — 90/10, 95/5, 97/3 and custom ratios, tiles to 2650 mm, bonded to copper backing plates
• Rotary targets — seamless tubes for Gen 2 through Gen 10.5 coating lines, ≥80% material utilization
• ITO powders — yellow and blue grades, micron to nano, for printable inks and antistatic coatings
• Coated glass — soda-lime and borosilicate substrates at 5–100 Ω/sq, patterned on request
• ITO PET film — flexible transparent electrodes at 30–300 Ω/sq for wearable and bendable devices
• Research sets — small targets, witness samples and characterization data for process development

Applications of Indium Tin Oxide

Displays and Touch Interfaces

Flat-panel manufacturing is ITO's home ground. LCD pixel electrodes, touch-sensor grids and OLED anodes are all patterned ITO, coated in-line from rotary targets across Gen 6 to Gen 10.5 glass. The economics hinge on the target: tubes above 95% theoretical density run without arcing or particle defects, deliver better than 80% material utilization, and hold sheet-resistance uniformity across meters of substrate. Our rotary and planar targets are built for exactly this duty cycle, with composition verified tile by tile.

Patterned ITO films make touch sensing invisible

Photovoltaics

Silicon heterojunction cells hold the single-junction silicon record at 26.6% — and both their contacts are ITO. Sputtered at low temperature onto the passivated wafer, the ITO layers carry current laterally while doubling as antireflection coatings, all without disturbing the amorphous-silicon passivation beneath; the result is bifaciality above 90% and a temperature coefficient around −0.25%/°C. ITO also fronts amorphous-silicon and CIGS thin-film modules and serves as the standard substrate electrode for perovskite research cells. Target purity and low-temperature film quality decide how much of that record efficiency survives into production.

Heterojunction cells rely on ITO contacts for their record efficiencies

OLED and Solid-State Lighting

Every OLED pixel injects holes through its anode, and ITO's 4.4–4.9 eV work function made it the default choice from the first commercial panels to today's televisions and lighting tiles. For large-area lighting panels, 95/5 compositions trade a little conductivity for higher transmittance and mobility; for microdisplays, ultra-smooth ITO prevents the shorts that kill yields. Beyond emission, ITO electrodes serve transparent photodetectors, thin-film transistors and the growing field of flexible optoelectronics on PET.

OLED lighting panels built on ITO anodes

Smart Windows and Architectural Coatings

Buildings consume ITO by the square kilometer. As the transparent electrode of electrochromic glazing, it lets façades tint on demand; as a low-emissivity coating, it reflects infrared heat while passing daylight, cutting cooling loads; as a transparent heater, it de-ices aircraft and automotive glass. Each function exploits a different face of the same physics — conductivity, IR reflectance and visible clarity in one film, deposited on architectural glass from rotary targets in coaters the size of a house.

Electrochromic and low-E glazing built on ITO coatings

Targets and Coating Technology

Behind every ITO film stands a target whose quality writes the film's limits. Density above 95% of theoretical (7.13 g/cm³) suppresses arcing and nodules; fine, uniform grain structure stabilizes erosion and film uniformity; defect-free indium bonding to copper survives years of thermal cycling in the coater. We manufacture planar tiles to 2650 mm and seamless rotary tubes, HIP- or atmosphere-sintered, with bonding coverage verified by ultrasonic inspection. Spent targets return through our indium reclaim program, closing the loop on the industry's scarcest element.

Rotary ITO targets keep display fabs coating uniformly

Why Source Indium Tin Oxide from Eata Energy

In ITO, the certificate is the product: composition drift shows up as sheet-resistance drift, and a single bonding void shows up as a burnt target. Eata Energy certifies density, purity and Sn ratio on every target, verifies bonding coverage ultrasonically, and tests witness samples from each sintering batch. Research customers get the same discipline in small formats — because a failed experiment costs more than the target did.

• Density ≥95% of theoretical with per-target certification
• Composition uniformity verified across every tile and tube
• Ultrasonically inspected bonding, ≥98% coverage
• Indium reclaim and recycling program for spent targets

Custom ITO Services

Standard 90/10 solves most problems; the rest we tailor. We adjust Sn content from 85/15 to 97/3 and beyond, dope with Zn, W or Hf for mobility or etch-rate tuning, and build targets to your geometry — planar tiles, segmented arrays or rotary tubes on your mandrels. Coated substrates can be specified by sheet resistance and pattern. Send your film specification or target drawing — we respond with a technical proposal and characterization plan, not a generic quote.

For Research or Industrial Raw Materials, Not For Personal Medical Use!