Deposition and property characterization of indium-tin oxide films for solar cells fabrication

The indium-tin oxide (ITO) films were deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering on glass substrate. The impacts of the film growth conditions, such as the oxygen flow rate, pressure, sputter power, deposition rate, and substrate temperature, on the microstructures, electrical and optical properties of the ITO films were evaluated. The ITO films, to be used as the antireflection layer, electrode coatings of the solar cell, were grown under the following optimized conditions: oxygen flow rate of 0.2 ml/min, a pressure of 3 Pa, a sputtering current of 0.2 A, and its resistivity and transmittance (550 nm) were found to be 3.7×10-3 Ω&middotcm, and 93.3%, respectively. The solar cells, fabricated with the ITO/n+-nc-Si:H/i-nc-Si:H/p-c-Si/Ag structure, possess the optimized specifications, including an open circuit voltage Voc of 534.7 mV, a short-circuit current Isc of 49.24 mA(3 cm2), and a fill factor FF of 0.4228.