Surface Modification of ITO Nanoparticles with Silane Groups

Indium Tin Oxide Nanoparticle (ITO) is a well-known transparent conductive oxide possessing an excellent combination of superior optical and electrical properties: hightransmittance in the visible spectral region, high reflectance in the IR region and nearly metallic conductivity [1]. ITO iswidely used as transparent conducting thin coating in a great number of applications including solar cells, flat-panel displays (LCD and touch-screen), optoelectronic devices,sensors and heat reflecting mirrors [1,2]. The nanometer-sized structures have been extensively investigated over the lastdecade mainly because of their attractive size-dependent properties. Semiconductor nanocrystals often exhibit strong variations in their optical and electrical properties with size asa direct result of the quantum size effect. The dispersion conditions strongly affect the particle size of the ITOsuspensions and consequently determine the surface morphology of the films [3]. In this work the ITO nanoparticles were surface modified using silane groups toimprove the dispersability of the particles and the resulting changes in the transparency of the solutions was investigatedwith Separation Analyzer (LUMi-Reader, LUM GmbH, Germany) and mean particle size measurement with Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS).