Optical and Electrical Performance of ZnO Films Textured by Chemical Etching

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) films were prepared by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on the glass substrate as transparent conductive oxide films. For silicon solar cells, a proper surface texture is essential to introduce light scattering and subsequent light trapping to enhance the current generation. In this study, the magnetron-sputtered ZnO films were textured by wet-chemical etching in diluted hydrochloric acid (HCl) for better light scattering. The diffuse transmittance of the surface textured ZnO films was measured to evaluate the light scattering. The influence of hydrochloric acid concentration on the morphology, optical and electrical properties of the surface-textured ZnO film was investigated. The ZnO film etched in 0.05M HCl solution for 30 s exhibited average diffuse transmittance in the visible wavelength range of 9.52 % and good resistivity of 1.10 x 10^-3 W×cm while the as-deposited ZnO film had average diffuse transmittance of 0.51 % and relatively high resistivity of 5.84 x 10^-2 W×cm. Experimental results illustrated that the optical and electrical performance of ZnO films can be significantly improved by introducing the surface texture through the wet-chemical etching process.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ms.21.4.9624