Materials Letters 257 (2019) 126770

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Materials Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mlblue

Promoting ITO film strain gauge factor by (1 0 0) preferred orientation

Shiping Zhao, Xin Zhang, Qizhen Wang, Zhixuan Lv, Shimin Liu, Chaoqian Liu, Nan Wang,
Yunxian Cui, Wanyu Ding ⇑, Hualin Wang ⇑, Weiwei Jiang ⇑
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Dalian Jiaotong University, Dalian 116028, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: ITO film strain gauge was deposited onto the stainless steel substrate by direct current magnetron sput-
Received 8 September 2019 tering technology. For ITO film without preferred orientation, the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge
Received in revised form 30 September was only about 4.55, because of the mixture of piezoresistive effect along random crystallographic
2019
direction, as well as the scattering of applied tensile. For ITO film with (1 0 0) preferred orientation,
Accepted 3 October 2019
Available online 5 October 2019
the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge was controlled by the piezoresistive effect along uniform
(1 0 0) crystallographic direction. Then, the gauge factor of strain gauge with (1 0 0) preferred orientation
could increase the gauge factor to 5.24.
Keywords:
Crystal structure
Ó 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Sputtering
Film strain gauge
Preferred orientation
Gauge factor

1. Introduction 2. Experimental

Without the interference to visible light, the transparent film
strain gauge could be used onto the surface of watch windows,
lens, and solar cell in the aeronautics and astronautics field [1–
4]. As the most widely used transparent conductive material, the
indium tin oxide (ITO) film is the ideal candidate for transparent
film strain gauge [5,6]. In actual practice, ITO transparent film
strain gauge was mainly fabricated by the sputtering technology,
such as direct current (DC), radio frequency, medium frequency,
and so on [7–9]. The growth model of ITO film was strongly influ-
enced by the sputtering process. Then, the crystal structure of ITO
film could be strongly influenced by the sputtering process, which
in turn influenced the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge seri-
ously. But, the relation between crystal structure of ITO film and
gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge was still not revealed clearly
enough, especially for ITO film with or without preferred orienta-
tion. In our experiment, ITO films and ITO film strain gauge were
deposited by DC pulsed magnetron sputtering technology. The
aim is to promote ITO film strain gauge factor by (1 0 0) preferred
orientation, as well as to understand the physical mechanism
behind them.
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: dwysd@djtu.edu.cn (W. Ding), whl@djtu.edu.cn (H. Wang),
jww@djtu.edu.cn (W. Jiang).
ITO and NiSi films were deposited onto the general glass sub-
strate. Simultaneously, ITO and NiSi film strain gauges were depos-
ited onto 304# stainless steel uniform strength cantilever beam
with the same pattern and thickness. The detailed deposition infor-
mation was shown in Supplementary Material. The crystal struc-
ture and optical property of ITO film was analyzed by
PANalytical Empyrean X-ray diffraction (XRD) system and U-
3310 UV spectrophotometer, respectively. The gauge factor of
ITO film strain gauge was determined by XL2101C static resistance
strain gauge.
3. Results and discussion
The crystal structure of ITO film was shown in Fig. 1. It can be
seen clearly that all XRD patterns displayed the diffraction peaks
attributed to cubic ferrite phase In2O3, respectively [10]. While,
the most important feature of Fig. 1 was that from ITO film (a)–
(e), the relative intensity of (2 2 2) and (4 0 0) peak gradually
became weaker and stronger, respectively. Especially for ITO film
(e), (4 0 0) peak became the main one, which meant ITO film (e)
with (1 0 0) preferred orientation.
The transmission spectra of ITO film (a)–(e), as well as NiSi film,
were shown in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the average transmissivity
in visible light range (400–800 nm) was about 86.5 ± 5.6% for all
ITO films. On the contrary, the transmissivity of NiSi film was zero

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2019.126770
0167-577X/Ó 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 S. Zhao et al. / Materials Letters 257 (2019) 126770
Fig. 1. XRD patterns of ITO film.
Fig. 2. The transmission spectra of ITO and NiSi films. The insert shows the photo
image of ITO and NiSi films, as well as ITO and NiSi film strain gauges.
in all wavelength range. The insert of Fig. 2 showed the photo
image of ITO and NiSi film, as well as ITO and NiSi film strain gauge.
It can be seen clearly that ITO film strain gauge had no influence on
the words background.
As the strain gauge, the gauge factor is the most important
parameter. Fig. 3 shows the gauge factor of NiSi and ITO film (a)–
(e) film strain gauges. It can be seen that the geometric deforma-
tion of grids results in NiSi film strain gauge with gauge factor of
1.13 ± 0.19, which corresponds well with the typical metal strain
gauge [1–4,11,12]. In case of ITO film strain gauge, the piezoresis-
tive effect results in the gauge factors lower than 4.55, which cor-
responds well with the typical N type semiconductor strain gauge
[1–4,13,14]. The gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge is more than
four times of that of NiSi film strain gauge, which displays the
advantages of ITO film strain gauge in microstrain measurement
Fig. 3. The gauge factor of NiSi and ITO film strain gauge.
fields. The most important characteristic of Fig. 3 is that in order
of strain gauge with ITO film (a)–(d), the gauge factor decreases
from 4.55 to 5.24. For the strain gauge with ITO film (e), the
gauge factor increases to 4.67. Combining the gauge factor and
XRD results, it seems that in general, the strain gauge with
(1 0 0) preferred orientation ITO film has the large gauge factor.
Here, the influence of (1 0 0) preferred orientation on gauge fac-
tor of ITO film strain gauge should be discussed logically and
briefly. Based on our previous report [15], ITO film (a) consisted
of the equiaxed ITO grains, just as shown in Fig. 4(a). When the ten-
sile stress was applied onto ITO film strain gauge (a), the lattice of
ITO equiaxed grain was the main stress transmission and release
channel. The direction of applied tensile stress was parallel to
ITO film surface. During the transmission and release process of
applied tensile stress by lattice of ITO equiaxed grain, because of
the anisotropy of piezoresistive effect, the gauge factor of ITO film
(a) in Fig. 3 was the mixture of piezoresistive effect along different
crystallographic direction, just as shown in Fig. 4(a). More impor-
tant, parts of applied tensile stress was scattered along the direc-
tion vertical to ITO film surface, just as shown in Fig. 4(a), which
has no contribution to the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge.
So, the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge (a) was only 4.55.
Based on our previous report [15], ITO film (d) consisted of the
columnar ITO grains with (1 0 0) preferred orientation, just as
shown in Fig. 4(b). During the transmission and release process
of applied tensile stress by lattice of ITO columnar grain, all applied
tensile stress worked at the boundary of columnar ITO grains. It
can be found that all applied tensile stress was parallel to ITO film
surface, just as shown in Fig. 4(b). So, all applied tensile stress con-
tributed to the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge (d), which
could reach to 5.24. However, going too far is as bad as not going
far enough. Based on our previous report [15], compared with ITO
film (d), ITO film (e) consisted of the columnar crystal structure
with much large diameter. In the tensile stress applying process,
the internal compressive stress in columnar crystal structure with
large diameter should be considered, which mainly focuses on the
grain boundary between columnar crystal structures. With the
applied tensile stress, the accumulation of internal compressive
stress could reach to the critical value and destroy or recombine
the grain boundary between columnar crystal structures [16].
Then, the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge (e) displayed the
smaller value and obvious fluctuation, just as shown in Fig. 3.
 S. Zhao et al. / Materials Letters 257 (2019) 126770
Fig. 4. The cross section diagrammatic sketch of ITO film strain gauge. (a) for ITO film without preferred orientation, (b) for ITO film with (1 0 0) preferred orientation.
4. Conclusions
In summary, the traditional direct current pulsed magnetron
sputtering technology was employed to prepare ITO film strain
gauge. For the polycrystalline ITO film without preferred orienta-
tion, the gauge factor of ITO film strain gauge was the mixture of
piezoresistive effect along different crystallographic direction.
Besides, parts of applied tensile stress was scattered along the
direction vertical to ITO film surface. Combining above two rea-
sons, the gauge factor of polycrystalline ITO film without preferred
orientation was only 4.55. For the polycrystalline ITO film with
(1 0 0) preferred orientation, the gauge factor of ITO film strain
gauge was controlled by the piezoresistive effect along uniform
crystallographic direction. Besides, the columnar ITO grains with
(1 0 0) preferred orientation could increase the gauge factor to
5.24.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (Nos. 51772038/51575074/61504017), Natural
Science Foundation of Liaoning Province, China (Nos.
2015020182/191/653, 201602120), Project Sponsored by the Sci-
entific Research Foundation for the Doctor, Liaoning Province,
China (No. 201601248).
3
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2019.126770.
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