Charge Transport Behavior of Al-Doped ZnO Incorporated with Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposite Thin Film

Woo Hyun Nam,Jung Young Cho,Jong-Hyeong Lim,Won-Seon Seo,Weon Ho Shin,Hiesang Sohn,Jong-Min Oh,Hyung Mo Jeong

doi:10.3390/app10217703

Abstract

ZnO is utilized as a promising material for various electronic and energy areas due to its outstanding chemical stability, abundance, non-toxicity, and low cost. However, controlling electronic transport properties of ZnO by facile strategy is still necessary for wider applications. Here, we synthesized reduced graphene oxide incorporated Al-doped ZnO nanocomposite thin film prepared by the electrospray deposition method and investigated the electronic transport behavior. The electron transport in pristine Al-doped ZnO thin film is strongly affected by grain boundary scattering, but significant enhancement of carrier mobility is observed in reduced graphene oxide-incorporated Al-doped ZnO nanocomposite thin film. The results demonstrate that this hybrid strategy with graphene has an important effect on the charge transport behavior in ZnO polycrystalline materials.

Highlights

Thin film (TF) materials with high transmittance as well as low electrical resistance have been spotlighted by researchers who may realize next-generation opto-electronic devices, such as displays, solar cells, touch panel, light-emitting diodes, etc [1,2,3,4]
We proposed a hybrid strategy for synthesizing Al-doped ZnO (AZO) incorporated with reduced graphene oxide (RGO) for controlling charge transport properties of oxide materials
We focused on the effect of RGO on the charge transport behavior of AZO TF

Summary

Introduction

Thin film (TF) materials with high transmittance as well as low electrical resistance have been spotlighted by researchers who may realize next-generation opto-electronic devices, such as displays, solar cells, touch panel, light-emitting diodes, etc [1,2,3,4]. Tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) TF has been used as a transparent electrode; its use will be limited due to the scarcity, toxicity, and low stability of indium [5,6,7]. ZnO is a direct transition-type semiconductor material with a band gap energy of 3.3 eV, and it has a large exciton binding energy of 60 meV even at room temperature. These qualities suggest that it could be considered as a potential alternative material for ITO due to its transparency, non-toxicity and cost-efficiency [8,9]. ZnO TF has a relatively high electrical resistance that restrains the wider use of ZnO. Tseng et al modified the physicochemical properties of ZnO to improve the performance via Al doping [10], and Liang et al prepared Ga-doped ZnO to increase electrical

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Conclusion