Flash‐Assisted Processing of Highly Conductive Zinc Oxide Electrodes from Water

Abstract

Fabricating high‐quality transparent conductors using inexpensive and industrially viable techniques is a major challenge toward developing low cost optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, light emitting diodes, and touch panel displays. In this work, highly transparent and conductive ZnO thin films are prepared from a low‐temperature, aqueous deposition method through the careful control of the reaction chemistry. A robotic synthetic platform is used to explore the wide parameter space of a chemical bath system that uses only cheap and earth abundant chemicals for thin film deposition. As‐deposited films are found to be highly resistive, however, through exposure to several millisecond pulses of high‐intensity, broadband light, intrinsically doped ZnO films with sheet resistances as low as 40 Ω □−1 can be readily prepared. Such values are comparable with state‐of‐the‐art‐doped transparent conducting oxides. The mild processing conditions (<150 °C) of the ZnO electrodes also enable their deposition on temperature sensitive substrates such as PET, paving the way for their use in various flexible optoelectronic devices. Proof‐of‐concept light emitting devices employing ZnO as a transparent electrode are presented.

Significant Enhancement of Antimicrobial Activity in Oxygen-Deficient Zinc Oxide Nanowires

“…ZnO nanowires and films were synthesized using a modified chemical bath deposition (CBD) similar to previous reports. 30 Glass and silicon substrates were cleaned via ultrasonication in acetone and isopropanol (IPA) for 10 minutes each, thoroughly rinsed with IPA and stored under IPA until needed. First, a ZnO sol-gel seed layer was deposited on glass and silicon substrates using a 0.4 M solution of zinc acetate in 2-methoxyethanol, with a 1:1 molar ratio between zinc and ethanolamine.…”

Solution-Processed CuSbS2 Thin Films and Superstrate Solar Cells with CdS/In2S3 Buffer Layers

“…A range of solution processes exist to produce crystalline semiconductor thin films. The most common methods include chemical bath deposition (CBD) [11][12][13][14][15] , electrochemical deposition [16][17][18] , successive ion layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) [19][20][21] , nanocrystal (NC) assembly [22][23][24][25][26][27] , and molecular precursors (MP) [28][29][30][31][32] . Of these techniques, the use of molecular precursors provides perhaps the most versatile, reproducible, and facile approach to achieving semiconductor thin films across a wide range of materials.…”

Ultrathin Solar Absorber Layers of Silver Bismuth Sulfide from Molecular Precursors

“…7,8,9,10,11,12,13 Traditionally, solution processing has utilized chemical bath deposition and electrochemical deposition. 14,15,16,17,18 Colloidal nanocrystal (NC) have also been extensively used, wherein the desired NCs are first synthesized and subsequently formulated into an "ink" suitable for thin film deposition 8,19,20,21,22,23 Recently, research in the area of solution processed thin films has received increasing focus on the use of molecular metal-organic complexes, termed molecular precursors (MP). The MP approach entails the formulation of a solution containing discrete precursors that can be readily cast into a thin film and then decompose upon heating to form the desired compound and crystal phase.…”