Abstract
Al-doped ZnO (Al/ZnO) thin film is a promising alternative to an ITO electrode in solar cell applications due to its low price, non-toxicity and other promising properties. In this paper, Al/ZnO thin films at different substrate temperatures were deposited on glass substrates as transparent conducting (TCO) films by DC magnetron sputtering. The effect of substrate temperature on the structural, morphological and optical properties of Al/ZnO films was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis suggests that crystal structure characteristics of synthesized thin films depend on the substrate temperature. The structure growth and variation in surface roughness with increasing substrate temperature are revealed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analyses. Thicknesses of the deposited films were also examined by surface profiler. Moreover, obtained results from optical transmission patterns revealed that with the increasing substrate temperature, optical transmittance decreases.
Highlights
Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are widely used in various applications in many optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells, LCDs, optical waveguide, surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, blue or ultra-violet (UV) LEDs, laser diodes (LD), light emitting diodes, gas sensor and different other devices [1,2,3,4,5].The application of transparent conducting (TCO) in crystalline silicon solar cells passivates the surface and reduces the probability of emitter shunting through holes [1]
This paper reports the study of the Al-doped ZnO (Al/ZnO) thin films’ properties, which depends on the film thickness, which can be varied by changing a substrate temperature
A systematic study has been performed to investigate the effect of substrate temperatures in the DC magnetron sputtering treatment on the growth behaviour of Al/ZnO thin films on the glass substrate
Summary
Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are widely used in various applications in many optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells, LCDs, optical waveguide, surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, blue or ultra-violet (UV) LEDs, laser diodes (LD), light emitting diodes, gas sensor and different other devices [1,2,3,4,5].The application of TCO in crystalline silicon solar cells passivates the surface and reduces the probability of emitter shunting through holes [1]. Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are widely used in various applications in many optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells, LCDs, optical waveguide, surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, blue or ultra-violet (UV) LEDs, laser diodes (LD), light emitting diodes, gas sensor and different other devices [1,2,3,4,5]. The most applicable material for the transparent electrodes fabrication is tin-doped indium oxide (ITO). The high cost of indium necessitates the research in the field of creation and characterization of the materials for the ITO substitution. Impurity doping of ZnO with the elements of the third group of the periodic table (boron, aluminium, gallium and indium) produces n-type conductivity due to Zn?2 ion substitution [6,7,8,9,10].
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