Preparation and Characterization of Nickel and Aluminum-Codoped SnO2 Thin Films for Optoelectronic Applications

El Mahdi Bouabdalli,Mohamed Monkade,Mohamed El Jouad,Taoufik Garmim,Samira Touhtouh,Ahmed Louardi,Bouchaib Hartiti,Paolo Fornasiero

doi:10.1155/2021/5556441

El Mahdi Bouabdalli, Mohamed Monkade + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5556441

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Abstract

In this study, the coating technique was used to prepare thin layers of nickel and aluminum-codoped tin oxide (SnO2: Ni; Al). This study is aimed at exploring the influence of aluminum (Al) dopant on the structural, optical, and electrical properties of the elaborated films. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies discovered that all deposited films (Ni-doped and Al-Ni-codoped SnO2) were polycrystalline with tetragonal (quadratic) structure and exhibited [110] preferential orientation. The optical measurements exposed that all prepared films have presented good transparency. The transmittance of Ni-Al-codoped SnO2 thin films in the visible and near-infrared regions varied between 80% and 90%; this was dependent on the concentration of dopant. The band gap was determined via the equation related to the absorption coefficient. It was deduced that the optical band gap values of thin films gradually decreased from 4.084 eV to 3.991 eV, as an effect of Al content. In addition, it was concluded that the thickness values of the films pass from 571.374 nm to 694.036 nm as an effect of Al content. Moreover, the extinction coefficient decreases with the wavelength in the UV region and then varies slightly towards longer wavelengths. Moreover, the electrical resistivity was determined using the four-point probe; it was determined that the electrical resistivity decreases from 1.35 × 10 3 Ω · cm to 0.14 × 10 3 Ω · cm with aluminum concentration increasing from 0 at. % to 7 at. %. The elaborated films of SnO2 codoped with Ni and Al present were highly transparent; therefore, these thin layers look promising in the use of the window layer in PV solar cells.

Highlights

In the recent years, a lot of studies aimed at transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) were conducted; this included tin dioxide (SnO2), zinc oxide (ZnO), indium oxide (In2O3), iron oxide (Fe2O3), and titanium oxide (TiO2)
The SnO2 thin layers have been extensively prepared by employing different procedures like dual-beam pulsed laser deposition (DB-PLD) [22], spray pyrolysis [23], magnetron sputtering [24], molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [25], and sol-gel method [26], which will be used with the spin coating to prepare our thin films; the reason this was chosen was because of its several advantages: its simplicity, low cost, and its ability to generally obtain uniform films with good adherence and reproducibility [27]
The X-ray diffraction (XRD) study demonstrated that all thin films Ni-doped and Al-Ni-codoped

Summary

Introduction

A lot of studies aimed at transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) were conducted; this included tin dioxide (SnO2), zinc oxide (ZnO), indium oxide (In2O3), iron oxide (Fe2O3), and titanium oxide (TiO2). These studies refer to a class of materials, which present the visible wavelength range, high optical transparency, and high reflectance in the infrared (IR) one with good electrical conductivity of nearly semimetallic regime. Impurities for doping SnO2 thin films have been applied by other researchers such as fluorine (F), antimony (Sb), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), aluminum (Al), and Indium (In) [28,29,30,31,32,33,34]

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