Studies on the Physical Properties of TiO2:Nb/Ag/TiO2:Nb and NiO/Ag/NiO Three-Layer Structures on Glass and Plastic Substrates as Transparent Conductive Electrodes for Solar Cells.

Laura Hrostea,Petru Lisnic,Liviu Leontie,Romain Mallet,Mihaela Girtan

doi:10.3390/nano11061416

Laura Hrostea, Petru Lisnic + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11061416

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Abstract

In this paper, the physical properties of a new series of multilayer structures of oxide/metal/oxide type deposited on glass and plastic substrates were studied in the context of their use as transparent conductive layers for solar cells. The optical properties of TiO2/Ag/TiO2, TiO2:Nb/Ag/TiO2:Nb and NiO/Ag/NiO tri-layers were investigated by spectrophotometry and ellipsometry. Optimized ellipsometric modeling was employed in order to correlate the optical and electrical properties with the ones obtained by direct measurements. The wetting surface properties of single layers (TiO2, TiO2:Nb and NiO) and tri-layers (TiO2/Ag/TiO2 TiO2:Nb/Ag/TiO2:Nb and NiO/Ag/NiO) were also studied and good correlations were obtained with their morphological properties.

Highlights

In the class of transparent conducting electrodes, there are few highly-doped oxides that are typically used as single layers of about 100 to 200 nm for electronics and solar cell applications [1]
SEMdistance micrographs of the oxide films prior the electrical conductivity was calculated using the estimated value of thickness obtained by deposition of subsequent layers, and Figure 1a–c depicts the top of the second oxide layer ellipsometry for the three-layer structure
We presented a comparative study regarding the physical properties of oxide/metal/

Summary

Introduction

In the class of transparent conducting electrodes, there are few highly-doped oxides that are typically used as single layers of about 100 to 200 nm for electronics and solar cell applications [1]. The most well-known is Sn-doped In2 O3 (ITO–indium tin oxide). Due to its intensive use and extremely limited resources on Earth, indium is one of the most economically important critical raw materials [2]. Alternative solutions for ITO have been intensively looked for. In the last few years, a new class of electrodes including ITO/Au/ITO, ITO/Ag/ITO, ZnO/Au/ZnO, AZO/Au/AZO and Bi2 O3 /Au/Bi2 O3 [14,15,16,17] was developed on plastic substrates for OPV applications [18,19].

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