Transparent Conducting Oxides—An Up-To-Date Overview

Abstract

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are electrical conductive materials with comparably low absorption of electromagnetic waves within the visible region of the spectrum. They are usually prepared with thin film technologies and used in opto-electrical apparatus such as solar cells, displays, opto-electrical interfaces and circuitries. Here, based on a modern database-system, aspects of up-to-date material selections and applications for transparent conducting oxides are sketched, and references for detailed information are given. As n-type TCOs are of special importance for thin film solar cell production, indium-tin oxide (ITO) and the reasonably priced aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al), are discussed with view on preparation, characterization and special occurrences. For completion, the recently frequently mentioned typical p-type delafossite TCOs are described as well, providing a variety of references, as a detailed discussion is not reasonable within an overview publication.

Polyol synthesized aluminum doped zinc oxide nanoparticles - influence of the hydration ratio on crystal growth, dopant incorporation and electrical properties

“…Aluminum Zinc Oxide (AZO) as alternative TCO reaches the most interest, because the precursors are nontoxic, cheap and earth-abundant [1,2,3]. There are diverse established physical and chemical techniques as sputtering, evaporation, pulsed laser deposition, chemical vapour deposition or sol-gel technique to deposit thin TCO films directly on substrate [4,5]. Coatings prepared by these techniques are highly transparent and exhibit the best electrical properties reported [6,7] but suffer from different drawbacks as high costs for vacuum processing, the limitation to flat and mostly heat stable substrates and the difficulty to scale up the processes on large areas.…”

Induced conductivity in sol-gel ZnO films by passivation or elimination of Zn vacancies

“…1 ZnO has emerged as a promising material to replace indium tin oxide (ITO), 2 the dominant TCO in most applications. Several contributing factors have led to the interest in ZnO including high cost of ITO and limiting supply of indium.…”

Уф-Ассистирование Процесса Роста Прозрачных Проводящих Слоев На Основе Оксида Цинка

“…При этом образуются поликристал-лические слои с характерной столбчатой структурой и, как следствие, низкой подвижностью носителей заряда. В последние годы заметно активизировались исследования, направленные на разработку альтер-нативных материалов и технологий синтеза прозрачных электродов для различных приложений [1]. Заметное место в ряду этих исследований занимает поиск резервов для улучшения характеристик прозрачных проводящих слоев на основе доступного коммерчески привлекательного 500 nm a b…”