Annealing time dependent structural, morphological,optical and electrical properties of RF sputtered p-type transparent conducting SnO2/Al/SnO2 thin films
(1. School of Materials Science & Engineering, Changwon National University, Changwon, 641-773, Korea;
2. Photovoltaic and Optoelectronic Device Center, Korea Photonics Technology Institute, Gwangju, 500-779, Korea)
2. Photovoltaic and Optoelectronic Device Center, Korea Photonics Technology Institute, Gwangju, 500-779, Korea)
Abstract: Transparent p-type conducting SnO2/Al/SnO2 multilayer films were fabricated on quartz substrates by radio frequency (RF) sputtering using SnO2 and Al targets. The deposited films were annealed at a fix temperature of 500 °C for different time durations (1-8 h). The effect of annealing time on the structural, morphological, optical and electrical performances of SnO2/Al/SnO2 multilayer films was studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that all the p-type conducting films possess polycrystalline SnO2 with tetragonal rutile structure. Hall-effect results indicate that 500 °C for 1 h is the optimum annealing condition for p-type SnO2/Al/SnO2 multilayer films, resulting in a hole concentration of 1.14×1018 cm-3 and a low resistivity of 1.38 ？·cm, respectively. The optical transmittance of the p-type SnO2/Al/SnO2 multilayer films is above 80% within annealing time range of 1-8 h, showing maximum for the films annealedfor 1h.
Key words: pulsed laser deposition (PLD);transparent conducting oxide (TCO); p-type;multi-layer;transmittance