The ITO sintering body, the sputtering target material, relation of production mannered null below-mentioned expression of the sputtering

摘要

An ITO sputtering target material which is used highly efficiently, has a long service life, and has a low aging effect in the sputtering conditions, an ITO sputtering target comprising the ITO sputtering target material, an ITO sintered body suitable for use in the ITO sputtering target material and the ITO sputtering target, and a method for manufacturing a sputtering target material that is suitable for manufacturing the ITO sputtering target material are provided. An ITO(Indium-Tin-Oxide) sintered body(10) satisfies the following relational expression: -30=100x(Av1-Av2)/Av1=30, where Av1 denotes a mean value(nm) of maximum diameters of fine particles(12) in In2O3 parent phase grains(11) that present in a central part of the sintered body, and Av2 denotes a mean value(nm) of maximum diameters of fine particles in In2O3 parent phase grains that present in an end portion of the sintered body. An ITO sputtering target comprises the ITO sintered body and a backing plate. As a method for manufacturing a sputtering target material by powder metallurgy, the method includes performing a sintering operation comprising a heating process of heating a molded object to be sintered and a cooling process of cooling the object to be sintered at a temperature decreasing rate of 50 deg.C/hour or more such that both ends of the object to be sintered have a temperature gradient with respect to one object to be sintered that has passed through the heating process.