Preparation of ITO Coating on PMMA by High-power Pulse Magnetron Sputtering

ITO coatings were deposited on polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) by high-power pulse magnetron sputtering (HPPMS). The effects of HPPMS on the coatings under different parameters were investigated, and the phase, bonding strength, transmittance and resistivity were characterized by XRD, scratch tester, spectrophotometer and Hall test platform, respectively. The results show that phase, bonding strength, transmittance and resistivity are affected by pulsed bias and flow rate ratio of hydrogen and argon. With increasing the pulsed bias, the bonding strength becomes better, and the best bonding strength is 56.5 N when pulsed bias is 240 V. With increasing the pulsed bias from 0 V to 160 V, the grain size gets bigger, the transmittance becomes better (increasing from 82.24% to 89.82%) and the resistivity also becomes better (decreasing from 0.006 571 to 0.000 543 Omega.cm). With increasing the flow rate ratio of hydrogen and argon from 0 to 0.05, the transmittance becomes worse (decreasing from 89.82% to 56.12%). With increasing the flow rate ratio of hydrogen and argon from 0 to 0.03, the resistivity becomes better (decreasing from 0.000 543 to 0.000 212 Omega.cm). With increasing the flow rate ratio of hydrogen and argon from 0.03 to 0.05, the resistivity becomes worse (increasing from 0.000 212 to 0.000 373 Omega.cm).