Deposition and characterization of ITO thin film over glass for defogger application and for solar photovoltaics

Abstract

Indium thin oxide (ITO) films have been used in solar cell applications as top conducting layers for many years. These films possess very good transmission and a low sheet resistance thus making them ideal candidate material for top conducting layers in thin film and HIT solar cells. In the present work, ITO films have been deposited over soda lime glass substrates for use as defogger applications, and for use as front contact electrode in HIT type solar cells as well. ITO deposition is done using pulsed DC sputtering technique inside a vacuum chamber with large size ITO sputtering target of 15 inches by 5 inches. Silver bus bars are printed at the two edges of glass using thick film screen printing technique and the firing of thick film is done in a belt furnace. The deposited ITO thin film characterization is done by using XRD, SEM and 4 probe sheet resistance measurement techniques. The transmission spectra is analyzed for optical transmission properties.