Optimum Preparation of Low-Resistivity Indium Tin Oxide Nanopowders Via Polyacrylamide Gel Route Using Orthogonal Experiment

Indium tin oxide (ITO) is a promising transparent conducting oxide material for photoelectric devices. In this work, the low-resistivity cubic ITO (c-ITO) nanopowders were synthesized via polyacrylamide gel route. The orthogonal experiment design was applied to optimize preparation process that was as follows: n(AM)/n(MBAM) = 25:6, c(In3+) = 0.3 mol/L, calcination temperature (T) = 700 °C, holding time (t) = 9 h. Subsequently, the thermal decomposition process of ITO xerogel, crystal structure, morphology, and electrical conductivity of the optimum sample were characterized systematically. The results indicated that the thermal decomposition of ITO xerogel was a multi-step kinetic reaction process, and the activation energy of reaction depended on the conversion of ITO xerogel. The powders were well indexed to cubic ITO crystal phase, and presented a concentrated particle size distribution of 34–54 nm and nearly spherical-like morphology. The low-resistivity value of 0.161 Ω·cm was obtained under the optimum preparation process. Moreover, the formation mechanism of ITO nanopowders prepared via polyacrylamide gel route was also investigated. The synthesized ITO nanopowders with low resistivity present wide application prospects of next-generation ITO functional materials.