Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 50 (2011) 06GG09 (4 pages)  |Previous Article| |Next Article|  |Table of Contents|
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Morphological and Electrical Properties of Self-Textured Aluminum-Doped Zinc Oxide Films Prepared by Direct Current Magnetron Sputtering for Application to Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

Young Baek Kim^1,2, Bum Ho Choi¹, Jong Ho Lee¹, and Jin Hyeok Kim²

(Received November 26, 2010; accepted January 29, 2011; published online June 20, 2011)

Self-textured Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layers were grown by DC magnetron sputtering, and their morphological and electrical properties were investigated. The self-textured AZO layers were fabricated by controlling the deposition conditions, without employing wet or dry etching for surface texturing. The polycrystalline AZO layers with a high surface roughness (42 nm) were grown on a glass substrate at various DC plasma power. The lowest sheet resistance was 3.7×10^-4 Ω cm and the highest carrier mobility obtained was 30 cm² V^-1 s^-1, which are comparable to those of chemically textured AZO layers. The electrical and optical characteristics of the self-textured AZO films are comparable to those of wet-etched AZO films that were etched using the conventional HCl solution. Our study suggests a possible way to inexpensively fabricate amorphous silicon thin-film solar cells.

URL: http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/50/06GG09/
DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.50.06GG09
PACS: 81.15.Cd, 81.05.Dz, 88.40.jj, 73.61.Ga

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