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

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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 In-doping 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% In-doped ZnO that received electron beam treatment at 2 keV exhibited an electrical resistivity as low as 4.8 × 10−2 Ω cm, while 57.1 Ω 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 beam-treated ZnO thin film.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Priority Research Centers Program (2009-0093823) and the Basic Science Research Program (NRF-2013R1A1A2008788) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-749, South Korea

    Solbaro Kim, Changheon Kim, Jihoon Na, Eunseok Oh & Sangwoo Lim

  2. Applied Optics and Energy Research Group, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, 1110-9 Oryong-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju, 500-480, South Korea

    Chaehwan Jeong

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  1. Solbaro Kim
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  2. Changheon Kim
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  3. Jihoon Na
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Correspondence to Sangwoo Lim.

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Kim, S., Kim, C., Na, J. et al. Improvement in electrical properties of sol–gel-derived In-doped ZnO thin film by electron beam treatment. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 74, 790–799 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-015-3664-x

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