Hot-Probe Characterization of Transparent Conductive Thin Films

Abstract

Transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin films represent a large class of wide-bandgap semiconductors applied in all fields of micro- and optoelectronics. The most widespread material applied for the creation of TCO coatings is indium-tin oxide (ITO). At the same time, there are plurality trends to change the high-cost ITO on other materials, for example, on the ZnO doped by different elements such as Al, Mn, and Sb. These films require mobile and low-cost evaluation methods. The dynamic hot-probe measurement system is one of such techniques that can supplement and sometimes replace existing heavy systems such as the Hall effect measurements or the Haynes–Shockley experiments. The theoretical basis and the method of analysis of the recorded dynamic hot-probe characteristics measured at different temperatures were presented in this work. This method makes it possible to extract the main parameters of thin films. Commercial thin ITO films and new transparent conducting ZnO:Al layers prepared by magnetron co-sputtering were studied by the proposed method. The measured parameters of commercial ITO films are in agreement with the presented and reference data. In addition, the parameters of ZnO:Al thin films such as the majority charge carriers type, concentration, and mobility were extracted from dynamic hot-probe characteristics. This method may be applied also to other wide-bandgap semiconductors.