Improvement in electrical properties of sol–gel-derived In-doped ZnO thin film by electron beam treatment

Abstract

In-doped ZnO thin films were prepared by a sol-gel spin coating method. Since several issues with In doping have been reported, such as degradation of crystallinity and deterioration of electrical resistivity at high Indoping levels, co-doping with Ga and electron beam treatment was demonstrated in this study. When In dopant was added to the ZnO thin film at 0.5 mol%, it increased the carrier concentration, thereby reducing the resistivity of the film. In contrast, further doping by Ga in the presence of In did not significantly change the electrical properties. When electron beam treatment was conducted on ZnO films, the optical band gap was increased and the carrier concentration and mobility were increased. In particular, a 0.5 mol% Indoped ZnO that received electron beam treatment at 2 keV exhibited an electrical resistivity as low as 4.8 9 10 -2 X cm, while 57.1 X cm was obtained from the pristine ZnO thin film. When the ZnO films were applied to crystalline Si solar cells, conversion efficiency significantly increased from 10.37 % for the cell with pristine ZnO thin film to 11.45 % with the In-doped and electron beamtreated ZnO thin film. Graphical Abstract 10

Highly Sensitive and Selective Ethanol Sensor Fabricated with In-Doped 3DOM ZnO

“…The higher the In-doping concentration, the smaller the E g is. Other groups also found that the E g decreased with the increase of the In-doping concentration. − With the increase of the In-doping concentration, the hybridization level of the s orbitals between In and ZnO conduction band becomes stronger, and consequently results in the decrease of the band gap. , …”

Indium doping effect on properties of ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by sol–gel method*

“…The incorporation of indium into ZnONPs allows the inhibition of the recombination of photo-generated electron and holes, thus collecting more charges and enhancing the conversion efficiency values. [25] Kim et al [26] synthesized the In-doped ZnO materials via the sol-gel route. They found that when indium dopant was added to ZnO material at 0.5 mol%, it increased the carrier concentration, therefore reducing the resistivity of the materials.…”