Anisotropic In-Plane Conductivity and Dichroic Gold Plasmon Resonance in Plasma-Assisted ITO Thin Films e-Beam-Evaporated at Oblique Angles

ITO thin films have been prepared by electron beam evaporation at oblique angles (OA), directly and while assisting their growth with a downstream plasma. The films microstructure, characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and glancing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering, consisted of tilted and separated nanostructures. In the plasma assisted films, the tilting angle decreased and the nanocolumns became associated in the form of bundles along the direction perpendicular to the flux of evaporated material. The annealed films presented different in-depth and sheet resistivity as confirmed by scanning conductivity measurements taken for the individual nanocolumns. In addition, for the plasma-assisted thin films, two different sheet resistance values were determined by measuring along the nanocolumn bundles or the perpendicular to it. This in-plane anisotropy induces the electrochemical deposition of elongated gold nanostructures. The obtained Au-ITO composite thin films were characterized by anisotropic plasmon resonance absorption and a dichroic behavior when examined with linearly polarized light.