Transparent conducting materials: overview and recent results

Abstract

An overview of different transparent conductors is given. In addition, atmospheric pressure CVD of ZnO resulted in conductivities below 1 mΩ cm for a temperature of 480°C, whereas at a process temperature of 200°C a value of 2 mΩ cm was obtained. Also atmospheric pressure spatial ALD was used to make conductive ZnO. Furthermore, the properties of transparent conductive oxides (TCO) can be enhanced by application of metallic grids. This way, sheet resistances of below 0.1 Ω/sq and transmittances above 85 % can be achieved. Modeling indicates that the performance of thin film cells can be enhanced by18% using a grid/TCO combination. Light scattering is a vital element of thin film solar cells and both texturization and multimaterial approaches for advanced light management such as plasmonics are discussed.

Efficiency loss prevention in monolithically integrated thin film solar cells by improved front contact

“…The best TCO material is a trade-off between the sheet resistance and the transmittance and depends on the device specific requirements. Figure 2b shows that when metallic grids and a TCO are combined, the sheet resistance can be improved at minimal transmittance losses compared with using a TCO or a thin metal film only [22]. Although this already suggests improved device performance, it should be noted that Figure 2b shows the result of a rectangular grid.…”

Optimized grid design for thin film solar panels

“…It was reported that the combination of a metallic grid and a TCO can result in a much higher conductivity, with only a small sacrifice in transmittance, see Fig. 2 (van Deelen et al, 2012;van Deelen et al, 2011b;van Deelen et al, 2014a). Because such approach would add complexity in the manufacturing process, the efficiency gain should be determined and evaluated with respect to manufacturing issues (Galagan et al, 2012).…”

“…The width of these stripes is in part dictated by the quality of the front contact (Rowell and McGehee, 2011). This quality is expressed in the physical characteristics of transparency and conductivity (van Deelen et al, 2012).…”

Investigation of self-consistent site-dependent DFT + U effect on electronic band structure and optical properties of SiFe2O4 spinel

“…Owing to the possibility of accommodating earths abundant transition metals in different oxidation states at the O h and T d sites, spinels such as the CuFe 2 O 4 , GaZn 2 O 4 , CuCo 2 O 4 and SnMg 2 O 4, offer an excellent opportunities for designing many technological applications which include: transparent conducting oxides (TCOs), [7][8][9][10][11], humidity sensors, magnetic materials for spintronics and storage devices, redox materials for solar-thermal water splitting, high surface-reactivity catalysts for water-gas shift reactions, electrodes in lithium-ion as well as sodium-ion batteries, and hydrogen generation for microbial systems [12][13][14][15][16]. In a 'normal' XM 2 O 4 spinel-type oxide, all X cations occupy the O h sites while the M cations occupy T d sites, whereas, in an 'inverse' spinel-type, the O h sites are shared equally by X and M cations with the T d sites occupied only by X cations [17].…”