Superior Conductivity of Transparent ZnO/MoS2 Composite Films for Optoelectronic and Solar Cell Applications

Abstract

The use of transparent conductive oxides in optoelectronics created a revolution where new-generation materials with high transmittance, low sheet resistance values, durability, and portability can be achieved without decreasing efficiency or increasing costs. Transparent ZnO/MoS2 sandwich-structured conductive composite films were produced in this study via the sol–gel method, which is considered the most efficient method due to its simple process and low cost. The crystal structure properties of ZnO/MoS2 were characterized via X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. The crystal sizes of ZnO films doped with different amounts of MoS2 were determined. A UV–visible absorption spectrometer was used to perform the spectroscopic analysis of the film. The area under the absorption curve and the full width of the half-maxima of absorbance data were calculated. Using these values, the optimum amount of MoS2 was determined for the best additive distribution. In addition, in order to determine the best transparent conductive material, resistance values measured via the four-point probe method were compared for different MoS2 additive amounts. The optical and electrical characterizations of transparent ZnO/MoS2 conductive oxide films were investigated. According to the parameters obtained via UV–vis spectroscopy, XRD, and four-point probe measurements, the most effective dispersion that exhibits a low width ratio and high resonance ratio was found for ZnO/MoS2 with a doping amount of 4 mg, the crystallite size of the films was found to be within the range of 21.5 and 24.6 nm, and these observations demonstrated a figure-of-merit value of more than 4.8 × 10−2 with respect to these sandwich-structured films. Compared to the values of previous studies on various transparent ZnO-doped conductive oxide materials, it is possible to claim that these new films have a structure that is very similar to the transparent conductivity characteristics of other films, and they may even be superior relative to some MoS2 amounts.