Applications of TCO Deposited by the Pulse DC Magnetron Sputtering Method on Solar Cells

• Main Authors: Tseng, Tai Cheng, 曾泰誠
• Other Authors: 陳子江
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48887551251547864996

碩士 === 國防大學理工學院 === 光電工程碩士班 === 98 === People’s facing the upcoming problems of fossil fuel exhaustion and environmental pollution in the future will definitely trigger the trend to utilize the unlimited solar power. Thus, raising conversion efficiency and lowering manufacturing cost has become the issues we must solve practically. This study focuses on the research about deposition, with optimal process parameters, of Al-doping ZnO (AZO) thin films in the PIN GaAs solar cell by the method, Pulsed DC Magnetron Sputtering (PDMS), whereby characteristics of AZO thin films can boost generated carrier collection and then the photoelectric conversion efficiency. Considering its similar optical and electrical characteristics to ITO, wide band-gap, no toxicity, low cost and good transparency in near Infrared region, etc., AZO is selected as the transparent conducting oxide material. Among various processes of depositing AZO thin films, PDMS offers advantages such as containment of arc events, higher deposition rate, and low substrate temperature, etc. In this study, AZO films with optimal optical and electrical characteristics are deposited by tuning parameters of sputtering power, pulse frequency and reverse time, etc, generating a AZO thin film applied on the PIN GaAs solar cell and enabling us to investigate the performance change before and after the deposition. The experiment result reveals that, without heating the substrate owing to instrument restriction, the AZO thin film prepared at the sputtering power of 400W, Pulse frequency of 30KHz, reverse time of 1μs, and sputtering pressure of 6mtorr delivers the lowest resistivity of 3.78×10-3Ω-cm and the high transmittance of 80% in the visible range. Up to 27% increment of photoelectric conversion efficiency can be achieved with such optimized AZO thin film on PIN GaAs solar cells.