Abstract
Low emissivity glass (low-e glass), which is often used in energy-saving buildings, has high thermal resistance and visible light transmission. Heavily doped wide band gap semiconductors like aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) have these properties, especially after certain treatment. In our experiments, in-line sputtered AZO and ITO bilayer (AZO/ITO) films on glass substrates were prepared first. The deposition of AZO/ITO films was following by annealing in hydrogen/nitrogen (H2/N2) plasma with different N2 flows. The structure and optical and electrical properties of AZO/ITO films were surveyed. Experiment results indicated that N2 flow in H2/N2 plasma annealing of AZO/ITO films slightly modified the structure and electrical properties of AZO/ITO films. The X-ray diffraction peak corresponding to zinc oxide (002) crystal plane slightly shifted to a higher angle and its full width at half maximum decreased as the N2 flow increased. The electrical resistivity and the emissivity reduced for the plasma annealed AZO/ITO films when the N2 flow was raised. The optimum H2/N2 gas flow was 100/100 for plasma annealed AZO/ITO films in this work for low emissivity application. The emissivity and average visible transmittance for H2/N2 = 100/100 plasma annealed AZO/ITO were 0.07 and 80%, respectively, lying in the range of commercially used low emissivity glass.
Highlights
Low emissivity glass, which owns characteristics of high visible transmittance and infrared reflectance, has been popularly applied in energy-saving architecture [1,2]
We have found that optimized H2 /N2 annealing on ITO can reduce the electrical resistivity of ITO films 58%
The results indicate that the structure of aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO)/ITO films can be modified by H2 /N2 plasma annealing
Summary
Low emissivity glass (low-e glass), which owns characteristics of high visible transmittance and infrared reflectance, has been popularly applied in energy-saving architecture [1,2]. Two kinds of low emissivity glass exist: metal-based multilayers and heavily doped wide energy gap semiconductors are reported in the market [3,4]. Doped wide energy gap semiconductors which do not need many layers and which may be considered as a substitute for silver-based multilayers applied in low emissivity glass were investigated in this work. Recent studies have shown that post treatment could reduce electrical resistivity and increase the visible transmission of ITO and/or AZO films [14,15,16,17,18,19]. The AZO/ITO films were post-annealed in H2 /N2 plasma at different H2 /N2 flow ratios (100/0, 100/50, and 100/100). H2 /N2 plasma annealing was obtained from the analysis of the measured results
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