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Point-defect engineering is an effective way to control the mobility and transparent-conducting performance of sputtered fluorine-doped ZnO (FZO) thin films. In this study, doping with fluorine (F) is accomplished through a simple one-step deposition process and is demonstrated to enhance the crystal quality, eliminate the point defects, and boost the mobility as well as the performance of the films. Furthermore, the films’ characteristics are observed to be strongly dependent on F content. At the optimum F content of 1%, the FZO films exhibited the best crystal quality and the lowest concentration of Zn interstitial and O vacancy defects due to F passivation. Moreover, a mobility as high as 45.3 cm2/V and the greatest figure-of-merit performance are achieved for cutting-edge transparent electrode applications. However, a further increase of F content brought about an increased concentration of defects relating to Zn vacancies, especially F interstitials, which yielded the low mobility and poor performance due to the degraded structure.

Conductivity σ and thermal conductivity κ are directly related to carrier concentration while Seebeck coefficient S is inversely proportional to carrier concentration. Therefore, improving thermoelectric (TE) performance is challenging. Here, the first-time analysis of secondary phase-controlled TE performance in terms of density-of-state effective mass m d ∗ , weighted mobility μw and quality factor B is discussed in ZnO system. The results show that the secondary spinel phase Ga2O3(ZnO)9 not only impacts on κ but also on σ and S at high temperature, while the effect of carrier concentration seem to be dominant at low temperature. For the high-spinel-segregation sample, a compensation of dopant atoms from the spinel to substitutional sites in the ZnO matrix at high temperature leads to a low decreased rate of temperature-dependent m d ∗ . The compensation process also induces a band sharpening, a small μw reduction, and a large B enhancement. As a result, In and Ga co-doped ZnO bulk with the highest spinel segregation achieves the greatest PF improvement by 112.8%, owing to enhanced Seebeck coefficient by 110% as compared to the good Zn-substitution sample.

Structure modification has been found to tune significantly the transparent-conducting performance, especially mobility and conductivity of hydrogenated Ga-doped ZnO (HGZO) films. The strong correlation between film thickness and mobility of the films is revealed. The mobility increases quickly with increasing the thickness from 350 to 900 nm, and then tends to be saturated at further thicknesses. A higher mobility than 50 cm2/Vs can be achieved, which is an extra-high value for polycrystalline ZnO films deposited by using the sputtering technique. The thickness-dependent mobility originates from scatterings on grain boundaries and dislocation-induced defects controlled by thin-film growth. Based on the Volmer-Weber model, an expansion model is built up to describe the thickness-dependent crystal growth of the HGZO films, especially at the thick films. As a result, the 800 nm-thick HGZO film obtains the highest performance with high mobility of 51.5 cm2/Vs, low resistivity of 5.3 × 10−4 Ωcm, and good transmittance of 83.3 %.

Introduction: Zinc oxide (ZnO) is well-known as a promising thermoelectric material owing to its safety, inexpensiveness, and thermal stability. This research provides an overview of thermoelectric potentials, including structure, electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and power factor of pure ZnO semiconductor synthesized in bulk and thin-film forms. Methods: The ZnO bulk was synthesized by solid-state reaction at high temperature, while the thin film was prepared by d.c. magnetron sputtering technique. The temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties of all the samples were measured by the Seebeck LSR-3 system. The crystallographic and surface morphological information of the samples were obtained by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), respectively. Results: The XRD results confirm that both the bulk and thin-film have polycrystalline structure and characteristics of hexagonal-wurtzite ZnO. Through the FESEM observation, the bulk is well densified under high-temperature condition, while the thin-film achieve good orientation and close-packed grains. At 573 K, the obtained thermoelectric properties (electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and power factor) are respectively 352.4 S/cm, -89.5 µV/K and 282.5 µW/mK2 for the ZnO bulk; and 289 S/cm, -113.8 µV/K and 374.3 µW/mK2 for the ZnO film. Conclusion: The comparative study shows the good thermoelectric potential of ZnO material in both forms of bulk and thin film. Among them, the thin film has better results, especially in the Seebeck coefficient and power factor than one.

The transparent-conducting performance is estimated through figure-of-merit (FOM) value. To improve poor FOM value of pure ZnO thin films, boron (

In this work, we prepare H and Ga co-doped ZnO (HGZO) films by a sputtering method with over 80% transparency in 400–1100 nm wavelength range and a sheet resistance as low as 3.9 Ω/sq. Hydrogen is recognized as a key element to enhance transmittance and conductivity. Spectroscopic evidence has indicated that hydrogen assists in substituting Ga3+ for Zn2+ (GaZn) in ZnO lattice; it produces more effective GaZn donors and increases electron concentration. We propose for the first time based on interstitial and substitutional hydrogen configurations that the interactions of Zn atom with its neighboring hydrogen atoms can weaken Zn–O bonds in ZnO lattice, and thus facilitate the substitution of Ga3+ for Zn2+. Furthermore, hydrogen can improve the quality of crystalline grains by lowering point-defect density such as Ga, Zn interstitials, Zn, and O vacancies, which strongly enhance electron mobility in HGZO films. The highest mobility of 48.6 cm2/Vs was obtained in the best-performing film.

The transparent-conducting performance is estimated through figure-of-merit (FOM) value. To improve poor FOM value of pure ZnO thin films, boron ( B ) as a donor impurity was doped into the films. Direct-current magnetron sputtering was used to prepare B -doped ZnO (BZO) thin films from sintered ZnO targets with variable B 2 O 3 content changing from 0 to 2 wt. %. The x ray diffraction analysis confirmed the preferably c -axis-oriented structure of hexagonal wurtzite ZnO host. The results also showed variation in the film structure versus the B 2 O 3 content through calculations of crystal size and residual stress. Depending on the B 2 O 3 content, a competition of interstitial and substitutional B 3 + ions induced more stress or relaxation in lattice structure of the films. At 1% B 2 O 3 , the BZO thin film had the best crystalline characterization with the lowest stress and large crystal size. In consequence, the BZO 1% film obtained the lowest resistivity of 2.7 × 1 0 − 3 Ω c m , average transmittance of 82.1%, and the best FOM value of 18.8 × 1 0 2 Ω − 1 c m − 1 . The transparent-conducting performance of the ZnO thin films deposited by direct-current (DC) magnetron sputtering was significantly enhanced through B doping. The good-performance BZO film at 1% B 2 O 3 is believed to be of use as electrodes in thin-film solar cells.