IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Thin Films Tuesday Sessions
       Session TF-TuM

Invited Paper TF-TuM3
Challenges in the Development of Novel Transparent Conducting Oxides

Tuesday, October 30, 2001, 9:00 am, Room 123

Session: Optical Thin Films
Presenter: T. Coutts, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Authors: T. Coutts, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
D.S. Ginley, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
D.L. Young, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
X. Li, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
J.D. Perkins, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have been used extensively during the last forty years for a variety of applications including, flat-panel displays, photovoltaic modules, and heat-conserving infrared reflectors on windows. While their performance has been acceptable for these applications, the demands of new developments and the emergence of new applications indicate that this will change in the near future. Changes in the quality of existing TCOs and/or the development of new materials are, therefore, certain to be required. In this paper, we shall review our work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in this field. This includes the synthesis of high quality spinel n-type TCOs such as cadmium and zinc stannate, binary oxides of tin, zinc and cadmium, and exploratory research into p-type TCOs such as ZnO:NO and the delafossites CuAlO@sub 2@ and CuInO@sub 2@. Several deposition techniques such as sputtering, pulsed laser deposition, and chemical vapor deposition are used, with combinatorial synthesis, to facilitate investigation of the vast phase-space encompassed by TCOs. In addition, we have extensive methods of characterizing the electrical, compositional, structural and crystallographic properties of the materials of interest.