Development of transparent conducting palladium and hydrogen-codoped cadmium oxide thin films

Abstract

Cadmium oxide is a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) material with versatile applications, many of which are linked to either light transparency in the NIR spectral range in addition to unique electrical conductivity. Doping is a known approach to influence those optoelectrical properties in order to bring them into a desired choice. In the present work, hydrogenated (annealed in hydrogen atmosphere) cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films doped with different amounts of palladium (Pd) ions were deposited on glass and silicon wafer substrates by physical vapour deposition method. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, optical absorption spectroscopy, and dc-electrical measurements. The obtained results show notable improvements in the conductivity, mobility, and carrier concentration of host CdO. Hydrogenated CdO film doped with 15 wt% Pd shows utmost enhancement in mobility (32.02 cm2/Vs), conductivity (4.6948 × 103 S/cm) and carrier concentration (9.16 × 1020 cm−3). This suggests the possibility of using hydrogenated Pd-doped CdO films in different TCO field of applications.