scholarly journals Improving Performance of CIGS Solar Cells by Annealing ITO Thin Films Electrodes

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuan Lung Chuang ◽  
Ming Wei Chang ◽  
Nien Po Chen ◽  
Chung Chiang Pan ◽  
Chung Ping Liu

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films were grown on glass substrates by direct current (DC) reactive magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Annealing at the optimal temperature can considerably improve the composition, structure, optical properties, and electrical properties of the ITO film. An ITO sample with a favorable crystalline structure was obtained by annealing in fixed oxygen/argon ratio of 0.03 at 400°C for 30 min. The carrier concentration, mobility, resistivity, band gap, transmission in the visible-light region, and transmission in the near-IR regions of the ITO sample were-1.6E+20 cm−3,2.7E+01 cm2/Vs,1.4E-03 Ohm-cm, 3.2 eV, 89.1%, and 94.7%, respectively. Thus, annealing improved the average transmissions (400–1200 nm) of the ITO film by 16.36%. Moreover, annealing a copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) solar cell at 400°C for 30 min in air improved its efficiency by 18.75%. The characteristics of annealing ITO films importantly affect the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of ITO films that are used in solar cells.

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (16) ◽  
pp. 1950178
Author(s):  
Jianhua Li ◽  
Zhiyuan Jiang ◽  
Pingwei Lin ◽  
Xinhua Chen ◽  
Lin Zhong ◽  
...  

This paper reports the annealing effect on the DC sputter transparent conducting tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) films for the alkali vapor cell heater of the chip-scale atomic sensors. ITO films with a thickness of 140 nm were deposited on BF33 glass substrates at [Formula: see text], followed by an annealing process in N2 atmosphere for 2 h at different temperatures between [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. The effect of annealing on the crystal structure, surface morphology, optical, and electrical properties of ITO films was characterized. The predominant orientation of crystal face of the as-deposited and annealed ITO thin films was (222) instead of (400). After annealing at [Formula: see text] the ITO film exhibits the highest transmittance ([Formula: see text][Formula: see text]90%) to the lights at the wavelength of 780 nm, 795 nm and 894 nm regarding the probe light in a chip scale atomic device. Besides, the lowest sheet resistance and resistivity were obtained as 27.8 [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] separately. The refractive index and extinction coefficients results verified the crystal orientation and the transmittance results. This thin ITO film was expected to be the best candidate for the transparent heater in the chip scale atomic devices.


2010 ◽  
Vol 168-170 ◽  
pp. 2348-2351
Author(s):  
Lazaro De Jesus Dominguez Gallegos ◽  
Angélica Silvestre López Rodríguez ◽  
Pio Sifuentes Gallardo ◽  
Miguel Angel Hernández Rivera ◽  
María Guadalupe Garnica Romo ◽  
...  

Indium stannate (InSnO3) films doping with small amounts of copper are made highly useful as architectural window coatings. Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) has attracted intense interest due to some of its unique characteristics; it has high optical transmittance in the visible region, low electric resistivity, and chemical stability. Therefore, ITO thin films have been found to play an important role in opto-electronic applications. In this work, uniform and transparent ITO films were deposited onto glass substrates using a sol-gel process. The initial sols were prepared by mixing solutions of indium chloride prepared in anhydrous ethanol with tin chloride and mechanically stirring and refluxed 2 hours and aged 2 week, the resultant mixture until a clear and sticky coating sol was obtained. The glass substrates were spin-coated and annealed at 500 °C. Because annealing conditions affect the microstructures, the properties of the resultant ITO films can be controlled. The optical transmittance of 200 nm thick ITO film was more than 80% in the visible region. The surface morphology examined by SEM appears to be uniform over large surface areas. The structural, microstructural and optical properties of the coatings and powders made from the sols were extensively characterized by using XRD, AFM and spectrophotometer techniques


2013 ◽  
Vol 678 ◽  
pp. 365-368
Author(s):  
Rangasamy Balasundraprabhu ◽  
E.V. Monakhov ◽  
N. Muthukumarasamy ◽  
B.G. Svensson

Nanostructure ITO thin films have been deposited on well cleaned glass and silicon substrates using dc magnetron sputtering technique. The ITO films are post annealed in air using a normal heater setup in the temperature range 100 - 400 °C. The ITO film annealed at 300°C exhibited optimum transparency and resistivity values for device applications. The thickness of the ITO thin films is determined using DEKTAK stylus profilometer. The sheet resistance and resistivity of the ITO films were determined using four probe technique. Finally, the optimized nanostructure ITO layers are incorporated on silicon solar cells and the efficiency of the solar cell are found to be in the range 12-14%. Other solar cell parameters such as fill factor(FF), open circuit voltage(Voc),Short circuit current(Isc), series resistance(Rs) and shunt resistance(Rsh) have been determined. The effect of ITO film thickness on silicon solar cells is also observed.


Coatings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1127
Author(s):  
Andrius Subacius ◽  
Bill Baloukas ◽  
Etienne Bousser ◽  
Steve J. Hinder ◽  
Mark A. Baker ◽  
...  

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films, used in many optoelectronic applications, are typically grown to a thickness of a maximum of a few hundred nanometres. In this work, the composition, microstructure and optical/electrical properties of thick ITO coatings deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering from a ceramic ITO target in an Ar/O2 gas mixture (total O2 flow of 1%) on unheated glass substrates are reported for the first time. In contrast to the commonly observed (200) or (400) preferential orientations in ITO thin films, the approximately 3.3 μm thick coatings display a (622) preferential orientation. The ITO coatings exhibit a purely nanocrystalline structure and show good electrical and optical properties, such as an electrical resistivity of 1.3 × 10−1 Ω·cm, optical transmittance at 550 nm of ~60% and optical band gap of 2.9 eV. The initial results presented here are expected to provide useful information for future studies on the synthesis of high-quality thick ITO coatings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1875-1882
Author(s):  
Sung-Hun Kim ◽  
Won-Ju Cho

Herein, indium–tin-oxide (ITO) thin films are prepared by a solution-based spin-coating process followed by a heat-treatment process with microwave irradiation (MWI). The structural, electrical and optical properties of the films are investigated. The properties of the microwave-irradiated sol–gel ITO films are compared with those of as-spun ITO films and sol–gel ITO films subjected to conventional furnace annealing (CFA) or a rapid thermal process (RTP). After microwave irradiation, the sol–gel ITO thin films are found to have crystallized, and they indicate enhanced conductivity and transparency. Furthermore, the resistances of the ITO films are decreased considerably at increased microwave power levels, and the resistivity of the films almost saturate even at a low microwave power of 500 W. The improved physical properties of the MW-irradiated samples are mainly due to the increase in the electron concentration of the ITO films and the increase in the carrier mobility after MWI.


2013 ◽  
Vol 677 ◽  
pp. 173-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Malik ◽  
F.J. de la Hidalga-W

The structural, electrical, and optical properties of spray deposited tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) films are reported in this work. The films have excellent properties, as a transparent and conducting electrode, for applications in a wide range of areas of optoelectronics such as photodetection and photovoltaic. One example of the ITO thin films application in semiconductor-insulating-semiconductor (SIS) efficient solar cells and modules is shown.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weimin Li ◽  
Xia Yan ◽  
Armin G. Aberle ◽  
Selvaraj Venkataraj

Molybdenum (Mo) thin films are widely used as rear electrodes in copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cells. The challenge in Mo deposition by magnetron sputtering lies in simultaneously achieving good adhesion to the substrates while retaining the electrical and optical properties. Bilayer Mo films, comprising five different thickness ratios of a high pressure (HP) deposited bottom layer and a low pressure (LP) deposited top layer, were deposited on 40 cm × 30 cm soda-lime glass substrates by DC magnetron sputtering. We focus on understanding the effects of the individual layer properties on the resulting bilayer Mo films, such as microstructure, surface morphology, and surface oxidation. We show that the thickness of the bottom HP Mo layer plays a major role in determining the micromechanical and physical properties of the bilayer Mo stack. Our studies reveal that a thicker HP Mo bottom layer not only improves the adhesion of the bilayer Mo, but also helps to improve the film crystallinity along the preferred [110] direction. However, the surface roughness and the porosity of the bilayer Mo films are found to increase with increasing bottom layer thickness, which leads to lower optical reflectance and a higher probability for oxidation at the Mo surface.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (05) ◽  
pp. 1350045 ◽  
Author(s):  
BO HE ◽  
LEI ZHAO ◽  
JING XU ◽  
HUAIZHONG XING ◽  
SHAOLIN XUE ◽  
...  

In this paper, we investigated indium-tin-oxide (ITO) thin films on glass substrates deposited by RF magnetron sputtering using ceramic target to find the optimal condition for fabricating optoelectronic devices. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the ITO films prepared at various substrate temperatures were investigated. The results indicate the grain size increases with substrate temperature increases. As the substrate temperature grew up, the resistivity of ITO films greatly decreased. The ITO film possesses high quality in terms of electrode functions, when substrate temperature is 480°C. The resistivity is as low as 9.42 × 10-5 Ω• cm , while the carrier concentration and mobility are as high as 3.461 × 1021 atom∕cm3 and 19.1 cm2∕V⋅s, respectively. The average transmittance of the film is about 95% in the visible region. The novel ITO/np-Silicon frame, which prepared by RF magnetron sputtering at 480°C substrate temperature, can be used not only for low-cost solar cell, but also for high quantum efficiency of UV and visible lights enhanced photodetector for various applications.


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