Abstract
This work reports the microwave-assisted fabrication of highly conducting Al-doped ZnO (AZO), Ga-doped ZnO (GZO), and Al, Ga codoped ZnO (AGZO) materials as cheaper earth abundant alternatives to indium tin oxide (ITO) for transparent conducting applications. All three doped ZnO powder samples were compressed into pellets, and their electrical properties were evaluated after the postsynthesis heat treatment. The heat treatment was performed by sintering the pellets at 600 °C in a reducing atmosphere using either conventional radiant annealing for 3 h or microwave annealing for 90 s. The Al and Ga dopant levels were systematically varied from 0.5 to 2.5 at. %, and it was found that the lowest resistivity values for the pelleted singly doped ZnO powders exist when the doping level is adjusted to 1.5 at. % for both AZO and GZO, giving resistivity values of 4.4 × 10–3 and 4.3 × 10–3 Ω·cm, respectively. The lowest resistivity of 5.6 × 10–4 Ω·cm was achieved for the pelleted codoped AGZO powder using the optimi...
Highlights
Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are of great importance in modern life due to their applications as coatings in electronic and optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, touch screen displays, flat panel displays, automobile/aircraft windows, and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs).[1]
The bonding states of Al, Ga, Zn, and O on the surface of the optimal (1.5 at. %) Al-doped ZnO (AZO), Ga-doped ZnO (GZO), and AGZO powders were investigated by XPS surface analysis (Figure 1a)
The Al 2p peaks located at 75.22 and 75.01 eV in Figure 2a correspond to the Al−O bond in AZO and AGZO, respectively
Summary
Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are of great importance in modern life due to their applications as coatings in electronic and optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, touch screen displays, flat panel displays, automobile/aircraft windows, and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs).[1] Typically, indium tin oxide (ITO) is the TCO of choice; the cost of ITO has steadily increased recently due to the rarity of In. research has intensified to find sustainable alternatives to ITO, with doped ZnO showing many favorable characteristics, most notably low cost. Various methods, including coprecipitation, hydrothermal processes, sol−gel, spray pyrolysis, aerosol-assisted methods, pulsed laser deposition, and magnetron sputtering, have been widely used to develop ZnO based TCOs.[2−5]. Annealing under an O2 atmosphere could reduce the number of oxygen vacancies in the lattice and cause a reduction in the number of charge carriers present in ZnO films.[6] On the other hand, annealing under reductive atmospheres (i.e., H2-rich atmospheres)
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