Influence of Co-Sputtered Ag:Al Ultra-Thin Layers in Transparent V 2 O 5 /Ag:Al/AZO Hole-Selective Electrodes for Silicon Solar Cells

As optoelectronic devices continue to improve, control over film thickness has become crucial, especially in applications that require ultra-thin films. A variety of undesired effects may arise depending on the specific growth mechanism of each material, for instance a percolation threshold thicknes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2020-10, Vol.13 (21)
Main Authors: Tom, Thomas, Ros, Eloi, López-Pintó, Nicolau, Miguel Asensi, José, Andreu, Jordi, Bertomeu, Joan, Puigdollers, Joaquim, Voz, Cristobal
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:As optoelectronic devices continue to improve, control over film thickness has become crucial, especially in applications that require ultra-thin films. A variety of undesired effects may arise depending on the specific growth mechanism of each material, for instance a percolation threshold thickness is present in Volmer-Webber growth of materials such as silver. In this paper, we explore the introduction of aluminum in silver films as a mechanism to grow ultrathin metallic films of high transparency and low sheet resistance, suitable for many optoelectronic applications. Furthermore, we implemented such ultra-thin metallic films in Dielectric/Metal/Dielectric (DMD) structures based on Aluminum-doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) as the dielectric with an ultra-thin silver aluminum (Ag:Al) metallic interlayer. The multilayer structures were deposited by magnetron sputtering, which offers an industrial advantage and superior reliability over thermally evaporated DMDs. Finally, we tested the optimized DMD structures as a front contact for n-type silicon solar cells by introducing a hole-selective vanadium pentoxide (V O ) dielectric layer.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944