AVS 50th International Symposium
    Thin Films Tuesday Sessions
       Session TF-TuA

Paper TF-TuA5
Expanding Thermal Plasma Deposition of Textured ZnO: Plasma Processes and Film Growth

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 3:20 pm, Room 329

Session: Transparent Conducting Oxides
Presenter: R. Groenen, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Authors: R. Groenen, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
I.M. Volintiru, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
M. Creatore, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
M.C.M. van de Sanden, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Correspondent: Click to Email
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) of considerable technological interest. Recently, the utilization of an expanding thermal plasma (ETP) created with a cascaded arc is demonstrated for low temperature textured ZnO deposition.@footnote 1@ The remote configuration of the ETP technique allows for separate control of plasma production, gas phase chemistry and substrate surface treatment and is suitable for large area deposition. Films are deposited on glass substrates from oxygen, diethylzinc and for doped material additionally trimethylaluminum. A controllable, rough surface texture which is essential for application as a front electrode in thin film solar cells, is inherently obtained during deposition. Here, a fundamental study of the plasma processes and film growth is presented. Complementary in-situ diagnostics (e.g. Langmuir probe, quadrupole mass spectrometry, optical emission spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry) are used to correlate plasma composition, film growth and material properties. Film growth appears to be dominated by molecular (i.e. background) instead of atomic oxygen. The relation between detected species and the observed texture development allows for further improvement of the material light trapping properties. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@R. Groenen, et al., Appl. Surf. Sci. 173 (2001) 40.