Influence of deposition temperature on indium tin oxide thin films for solar cell applications

• Main Authors: Kanneboina, Venkanna, Basumatary, Pilik, Agarwal, Pratima
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Crystallites; Crystallization; Deposition; Electrical resistivity; Glass substrates; Indium tin oxides; Low temperature resistance; Photovoltaic cells; Solar cells; Surface roughness; Thin films; X-ray diffraction
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/1.5096507

The transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer is an important layer to improve the efficiency of solar cells. The key requirements are low sheet resistance and high transparency in visible range. In order to optimize the deposition parameters to get high quality TCO, Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films were deposited on corning1737 glass substrate at deposition temperature ranging from 50 to 200 °C by using RF Sputtering technique. It is observed from X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements that the films deposited at 50°C were nanocrystalline in nature. The film crystallinity was improved with increase in deposition temperature and saturated at 150 °C. The average crystallite size was estimated by Williamson-Hall method, which are in the range of 21 to 27 nm for the films deposited at 100 to 200 °C respectively. The film deposited at 150 °C showed 91-98% of transmission in the wavelength range of 400-1500 nm, low sheet resistance of 7.5 Ω/□ and surface roughness of 6.1 nm. These highly crystallized, low sheet resistance and low temperature ITO films are very useful for improving efficiency of solar cells.