63
Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 1536 © 2013 Materials Research Society
DOI: 1 557/op 013 0.1 l.2 .
SnO
2
:F with Very High Haze Value and Transmittance in Near Infrared
Wavelength for Use as Front Transparent Conductive Oxide Films in Thin-
Film Silicon Solar Cells
Masanobu Isshiki
1,2
, Yasuko Ishikawa
1
, Toru Ikeda
1
, Takuji Oyama
1
, Hidefumi Odaka
1
,
Porponth Sichanugrist
2
and Makoto Konagai
2,3
1
Research Center, Asahi Glass Co., Ltd., 1150 Hazawa-cho, Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama-shi,
Kanagawa 221-8755, Japan
2
Department of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1, Oookayama,
Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan
3
Photovoltaic Research Center (PVREC), Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1, Oookayama,
Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8552, Japan
ABSTRACT
Low sheet resistance (high mobility) with high transmittance in all wavelength is required
for front TCO. High haze value is also required for effective light trapping. For this purpose, we
have combined F-doped SnO
2
(FTO) with high mobility deposited by LPCVD and reactive ion
etching (RIE) processed glass substrate. However, two problems have been found. (1) The
mobility of FTO on RIE substrate dropped from that on flat glass (75 to 36 cm
2
/Vs). To avoid
this drop, thicker film is needed. (2) To keep high transmittance with thicker film, lower carrier
concentration is needed. But the mobility dropped with lower carrier concentration. In order to
solve these constrains, we have adopted a stacked structure using thick non-doped layer of 2700
nm and thin F-doped layer of 500 nm. With this novel approach, we have successfully achieved
the high mobility (80 cm
2
/Vs), low carrier concentration (2.2x10
19
/cm
3
) and high haze value
(77% at wavelength of 1000 nm) at the same time. This new developed high-haze SnO
2
is a new
promising TCO for thin-film Si solar cells.
INTRODUCTION
For front transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films used in thin-film silicon solar cells,
high transmittance in all wavelength, low sheet resistance and high haze value are required. To
achieve high transmittance and low sheet resistance, the carrier concentration and mobility of
TCO need to be low and high, respectively. Fig. 1 shows simulation results based on Drude
model [1]. From Fig. 1(a), the absorption is almost the same in various carrier concentration if
the mobility and the product of carrier concentration and film thickness (n*d) are fixed. From
Fig. 1(b), the absorption becomes higher rapidly as mobility decreases. So, higher mobility is
very important to achieve lower absorption especially in the longer wavelength.
TCOs with high mobility of around 80 cm
2
/Vs have been reported by several groups
including ours [2-4]. But all of them have flat surfaces and low haze values. Recently, W-
textured ZnO films fabricated by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on
reactive ion etching (RIE) processed glass substrates are reported to have very high haze value
[5]. However, the mobility of MOCVD B-doped ZnO is not high enough. Therefore, we have
developed F-doped SnO
2
(FTO) with higher mobility and higher haze value using RIE-etched
substrate.
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