Highly transparent conductive electrode with ultra-low HAZE by grain boundary modification of aqueous solution fabricated alumina-doped zinc oxide nanocrystals

Journal Article · Mon Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · APL materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4915489· OSTI ID:22415302

Nian, Qiong; Cheng, Gary J. ^[1]; Callahan, Michael; Bailey, John ^[2]; Look, David ^[3]; Efstathiadis, Harry ^[4]

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1. Birck Nanotechnology Center and School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906 (United States)
2. Greentech Solutions, Inc., Hanson, Massachusetts 02341 (United States)
3. Semiconductor Research Center, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 45435 (United States)
4. College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), University of Albany, Albany, New York 12203 (United States)

Commercial production of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) polycrystalline films requires high electrical conductivity with minimal degradation in optical transparency. Aqueous solution deposited TCO films would reduce production costs of TCO films but suffer from low electrical mobility, which severely degrades both electrical conductivity and optical transparency in the visible spectrum. Here, we demonstrated that grain boundary modification by ultra-violet laser crystallization (UVLC) of solution deposited aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO) nanocrystals results in high Hall mobility, with a corresponding dramatic improvement in AZO electrical conductance. The AZO films after laser irradiation exhibit electrical mobility up to 18.1 cm{sup 2} V{sup −1} s{sup −1} with corresponding electrical resistivity and sheet resistances as low as 1 × 10{sup −3} Ω cm and 75 Ω/sq, respectively. The high mobility also enabled a high transmittance (T) of 88%-96% at 550 nm for the UVLC films. In addition, HAZE measurement shows AZO film scattering transmittance as low as 1.8%, which is superior over most other solution deposited transparent electrode alternatives such as silver nanowires. Thus, AZO films produced by the UVLC technique have a combined figure of merit for electrical conductivity, optical transparency, and optical HAZE higher than other solution based deposition techniques and comparable to vacuumed based deposition methods.

• OSTI ID: 22415302
• Journal Information: APL materials, Journal Name: APL materials Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 3; ISSN 2166-532X; ISSN AMPADS
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CRYSTALLIZATION
DEPOSITION
DOPED MATERIALS
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
FILMS
GRAIN BOUNDARIES
LASER RADIATION
NANOWIRES
OPACITY
POLYCRYSTALS
VISIBLE SPECTRA
ZINC OXIDES