Mechanisms of electrical and optical properties modification of ZnO:Al films induced by very rapid thermal processing


Mechanisms of electrical and optical properties modification of ZnO:Al films induced by very rapid thermal processing

Vinnichenko, M.; Hauschild, D.; Cornelius, S.; Krause, M.; Gago, R.; Mücklich, A.; Neidhardt, J.; Lissotschenko, V.; Kolitsch, A.

Thermal processing at millisecond range (very rapid thermal processing, vRTP) is an attractive approach of ZnO:Al film properties improvement compared to RTP or time-consuming isothermal annealing. This is of importance for development of cost-efficient transparent electrodes for thin film solar cells. The present study elucidates the effects of thermal processing on the film optical and electrical properties comparing vRTP treatment at ambient atmosphere using a laser source (~1 ms dwell time) with isothermal annealing in vacuum (1 hour, Ta≤550 °C). The films were grown by reactive pulsed magnetron sputtering (MS) at lab scale and non-reactive MS using an industrial in-line system. The optimized laser processing and the isothermal annealing of the films grown at low temperatures (RT-100 °C) result in an increase of their transmittance in the visible, decrease of electrical resistivity from (1-2)x10^-3 to less than 5x10^-4 Ohm cm, substantial increase of free electron mobility, µe, and density, Ne. Laser annealing of the films grown under optimized conditions at 350 °C does not improve their properties, while isothermal annealing leads to an increase of µe values above 50 cm2V-1s-1. According to TEM, ellipsometry, Raman spectroscopy and XANES, annealing of intra-grain oxygen-related point defects during vRTP has a main effect on the film electrical properties, while during isothermal annealing additional improvement of crystallinity needs to be taken into account.

Keywords: transparent conductive oxides; ZnO:Al; high-power diode laser annealing

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Publ.-Id: 17144