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Al-doped ZnO thin films with excellent optoelectronic properties prepared using H2-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering at low temperatures for potential application in photovoltaic devices

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Abstract

Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films are deposited on glass substrate by RF magnetron sputtering under reactive plasma with different contents of hydrogen (H2). Following optimized volume ratio of H2/(H2 + Ar) in working gas for large area uniformity, working pressure, and substrate temperature effects are investigated systematically to achieve AZO:H film with excellent optoelectronic properties. The crystallization, sheet resistance, and Hall mobility of AZO:H film are enhanced with reducing working pressure. AZO:H films perform average transmittance of 90 ± 2% and sheet resistance of 16.5 ± 2.0 Ω/sq regardless of the substrate temperature as the sputtering process is combined with H2-assited sputtering deposition. As the substrate temperature is 150 °C, the prepared film is with the lowest resistivity of 6.0 × 10− 4 Ω cm and large Hall mobility of ~ 37 cm2 V− 1 s− 1. With the optimization of AZO:H films, the efficiency of Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 device is improved by 38% compared to the conventional preparation process. This offers incredible flexibility of substrate temperature selection for the application of AZO:H thin film as window layer in solar cells and other optoelectronic devices.

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Acknowledgements

This project is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFB1500200), the National Nature Science Foundation of China under Grant No. U1902218, and also supported by “The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,” Nankai University (63211103).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Photoelectronic Thin Film Devices and Technology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Thin Film Devices and Technology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Rutao Meng, Shengli Zhang, Hongling Guo, Yali Sun, Jiajia Guo, Jianping Ao, Wei Liu, Fangfang Liu & Yi Zhang

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  1. Rutao Meng
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  2. Shengli Zhang
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  3. Hongling Guo
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  4. Yali Sun
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Contributions

YZ directed the study. All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by RM and SZ. The first draft of manuscript was written by SZ and RM. All authors commented on previous versions of manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shengli Zhang or Yi Zhang.

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Meng, R., Zhang, S., Guo, H. et al. Al-doped ZnO thin films with excellent optoelectronic properties prepared using H2-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering at low temperatures for potential application in photovoltaic devices. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 10267–10277 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08015-0

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