Ale Growth of Transparent Conductors

Abstract

AbstractOwing to its self-limiting growth mechanism the Atomic Layer Epitaxy (ALE) technique is capable of growing uniform high quality thin films on large area substrates. Therefore, ALE is an attractive choice for depositing transparent electrically conducting films for large area applications, such as solar cells and flat panel displays. In this paper studies on ALE growth of In2O3 and ZnO based transparent conducting thin films will be presented. In2O3, In2O3:Sn and In 2O3:F films were grown at 500 °C and their lowest resistivities were about 3 x 10-3, 2 x 10-3 and 6 x 10-4 Ωcm, respectively. Low temperature (120 - 350 °C) ALE deposition processes were developed for ZnO and ZnO:AI films, the latter having resistivities as low as 8 x 10-4 Ωcm. A straightforward scale-up of the ZnO process from 5 x 5 to 30 x 30 cm 2 substrate size was also demonstrated.