Design, Growth, and Characterization of Crystalline Copper Oxide p-Type Transparent Semiconductive Thin Films with Figures of Merit Suitable for Their Incorporation into Translucent Devices

Abstract

The development of high-performance p-type transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) is a scientific challenge. Cupric oxide (CuO) and cuprous oxide (Cu 2 O) are attractive candidates for manufacturing p-type TCOs due to their optoelectronic properties. However, tailoring the copper oxide optical absorption and sheet resistance using scalable and simple synthesis methods is not easy. This work presents a straightforward and highly reproducible methodology based on DC sputtering plus thermal treatments to manufacture copper oxide p-type TCOs with optimal figures of merit. We demonstrate that a low-temperature longtime annealing is capable of changing the conductivity and average transmittance of a determined copper oxide TCO. Our proposed long thermal treatment produces a decrease in the TCO average transmittance from 82 to 67%, but, in return, it generates an increment in the conductivity of 3 orders of magnitude from 2.5 × 10 −5 S/cm up to 0.048 S/cm. We estimate that these p-type TCOs could be used to build diverse translucent experimental devices where a p−n heterojunction is required.

Al-Doped ZnO Thin Films with 80% Average Transmittance and 32 Ohms per Square Sheet Resistance: A Genuine Alternative to Commercial High-Performance Indium Tin Oxide

“…During the last decades, transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have been considered attractive materials in different areas due to their high electrical conductivity and large transparency in the visible and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum [1][2][3][4]. TCOs are used in a wide variety of devices, e.g., in solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), liquid crystal displays, touch screens, photothermal conversion systems, and intelligent windows [5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”