Development of ZTO/Ag/ZTO transparent electrodes for thin film solar cells

Abstract

This article presents the optimization of Zinc Tin Oxide/Silver/Zinc Tin Oxide (ZTO/Ag/ZTO) multilayers to implement them in thin film solar cells as transparent electrodes. To achieve improvements on the performance of these transparent multilayers, effect of Ag and ZTO thicknesses, and position of Ag layer within the multilayer were investigated. Electrical and optical characterization of these multilayers revealed that reduced sheet resistance and improved optical transmittance can be acquired for solar cells by the optimization of thin film thicknesses and position of the Ag within the multilayer. The improvement of the electrical and optical behavior of the ZTO/Ag/ZTO structures enabled figure of merit (FoM) values up to 69.69 × 10–3 Ω−1. The performance of our multilayer electrodes was also compared with ITO and AZO electrodes. The obtained results suggest that fabricated multilayer electrodes can be a good choice for thin film solar cells.