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Results for “transparent conducting oxide”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Resolving Electron Injection from Singlet Fission-Borne Triplets into Mesoporous Transparent Conducting Oxides

Photoinduced electron transfer from a molecular chromophore into mesoporous metal oxide substrates occurs efficiently from both singlet and triplet excited states for traditional metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) dyes. All organic molecules that undergo singlet fission (SF), the process of generating two triplet excitons with photoexcitation of one singlet exciton, offers a promising method of generating two charges per one absorbed photon. However, the singlet-triplet energy balance required to drive SF often places the driving force for triplet electron injection into metal oxides too low. As such, the dynamics of singlet vs. triplet electron transfer for SF in dye-sensitized solar cell configurations has not been elucidated. Here, we use applied bias transient absorption spectroscopy to modulate the driving force for triplet electron transfer from an anthradithiophene-based SF chromophore (ADT-COOH) adsorbed to mesoporous indium tin oxide (nanoITO).

CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SU↗
DOE OSTI2021

High stability of flexible perovskite transparent conductive oxide film via van der Waals heteroepitaxy

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs), such as indium-tin oxide (ITO) and indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), are essential components in the design of flexible optoelectronic devices. However, it is still a challenge to prepare low-cost flexible transparent conductive film for achieving the flexible functionality together with high optical transparency and electrical conductivity. Herein, fluorphlogopite (mica) is selected as the bendable and transparent substrate for the fabrication of low-cost perovskite CaVO 3 TCO epitaxial film. Benefitting from thin mica substrate with high Young’s modulus of 200 GPa, flexible CaVO 3 TCO epitaxial film exhibits high mechanical stability in terms of electrical conductivity and optical transparency after bending up to 10 5 cycles. The change of resistance can reflect the bending curvature and strain state. Finally, our results provide a new pathway to design superior mechanical flexibility and stability CaVO 3 TCO films for application in flexible, light-weight, and portable smart optoelectronic devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Electronic structure of p -type transparent conducting oxide CuAlO 2

We report copper-based delafossite oxides are excellent candidates for the p-type transparent conducting oxide (TCO), which is essential in realizing transparent semiconductor applications. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), we report the low-energy electronic structure of CuAlO 2 . We found that the band structure near the valence band top is characterized by hole bands with their maxima along the Brillouin zone boundary. Furthermore, the effective masses along the Γ–M and Γ–K directions were found to be (0.6 ± 0.1) m0 and (0.9 ± 0.1) m 0 , respectively, which impose an important benchmark against the existing band calculations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Misfit p-type transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films, methods and applications

A p-type transparent conductive oxide (TCO) mixed metal oxide material layer formed upon a substrate has a formula M1xM2yOz generally, CaxCoyOz more specifically, and Ca3Co4O9 most specifically. Embodiments provide that the p-type TCO mixed metal oxide material may be formed absent an epitaxial crystalline relationship with respect to the substrate while using a sol-gel synthesis method that uses a chelating polymer material and not a block copolymer material.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Investigation of Ga 2 O 3 as a new transparent conductive oxide for photovoltaics applications

This small innovation project intended to leverage recent activity and advances in ultrawide-bandgap oxide power electronics toward the investigation of Ga 2 O 3 as a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) for use in photovoltaics (PV). Ga 2 O 3 ’s theoretical advantage over incumbent TCOs is its very large bandgap of 4.8 eV, ensuring optical transparency of photons with λ ≥ 260 nm, effectively the full terrestrial solar spectrum. At the time of proposal writing, literature on Ga 2 O 3 as a TCO/optical material was relatively sparse — what little existed was focused on for UV sensors and/or emitters, with none related to PV. As such, this project was intended to help determine the potential of Ga 2 O 3 as a PV-oriented TCO by investigating its deposition using tools common to the PV and electronics industries — atomic layer deposition (ALD) and RF sputtering (RS), both of which are already used in PV manufacturing — and its resultant optical and electronic properties. Final project goals were to test its application to Si and III-V solar cells. Controllable film thickness and excellent uniformity was established for both methods deposition methods, with ALD providing higher precision for thinner films and RS more effective for growing thicker films. The as-deposited films were found to be amorphous in nature. Spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) confirmed bandgaps of at least 4.8 eV and non-parasitic absorption across both AM0 and AM1.5G spectra; a refractive index approaching the expected value of 1.8 was also observed, with some degree of tunability based on process parameters. Using this initial optical data, a transfer matrix model, which interfaces with in-house EQE and LIV models, was developed to simulate Ga 2 O 3 optical effects on various solar cells, included potential in antireflection coatings (ARCs). Despite promising optical properties, the resultant resistivity / conductivity metrics did not meet expectations, regardless of deposition process. Although thick RS-deposited films, using both undoped and 1 at% Ge (n-type) doped sintered targets — demonstrated high net carrier concentrations (via C-V), and low specific resistance Ohmic contacts were demonstrated, transmission line measurements (TLM) showed very high resistivity. Further analysis indicated high vertical film conductivity, but very low lateral conductivity. Deeper characterization revealed a relatively high density of nano/microcrystalline inclusions that were ostensibly the source of the vertical conductivity, with the amorphous matrix serving as an effective insulator (likely due to high concentrations of electronic trap states). Despite extensive work to increase film polycrystallinity — demonstrated via high temperature annealing — sufficient lateral conductivity for TCO use was not achieved. The final phase of the project shifted focus toward investigation of ALD-deposited Ga 2 O 3 ’s potential as a passivant and/or passivating contact for both Si and III-V solar cells, with expectation of performance similar to Al 2 O 3 . However, initial rounds of testing using our baseline ALD process yielded minimal (but not quite zero) passivation of both GaInP and Si surfaces. Dielectric passivation is well-known to be highly process sensitive; given the unoptimized nature of the process used, this work was deemed inconclusive. The final outlook with respect to feasibility of Ga 2 O 3 as a PV-oriented TCO is, ultimately, still uncertain. The work performed in this project confirmed the optical properties and deposition methods, but the achieved electrical properties do not meet technological needs; literature reports in recent years are somewhat inconsistent and potentially untrustworthy, but generally appear to be in line with our results. At the very least it is clear that, should Ga 2 O 3 still be under consideration for PV TCO and/or selective contact applications, a significant amount of optimization and study is still needed.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2019

Transparent Conducting Oxides as Cathodes in Li-O2 Batteries: A First Principles Computational Investigation

Li-O2 batteries have traditionally used carbon based electrodes (graphite, buckypaper) as the cathode of choice due toits good electrical conductivity, stability against non-aqueous electrolytes like dimethoxyethane (DME) and ease ofhandling. But, the carbon cathode also leads to formation of carbonate by-products that increase overpotentials duringcharging leading to degradation of the cathode and reduction of cyclability. Recent investigations have focused on using metal-oxides like SnO2, TiO2 as viable cathodes-alternatives in Li-O2 systems. In this paper, we investigate transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) as cathodes with focus on the interface between the TCO surfaces and the discharge product, Li2O2, in the Li-O2 battery using first principles computations.

transparent conducting oxides↗
DOE OSTI2022

Transparent conducting oxides: from all-dielectric plasmonics to a new paradigm in integrated photonics

During the past few years, the optics and photonics communities have renewed their attention toward transparent conducting oxides (TCOs), which for over two decades have been broadly employed for the fabrication of transparent electrodes in photovoltaic and communication technologies. This reinvigorated research curiosity is twofold: on the one hand, TCOs, with their metal-like properties, low optical absorption, and fabrication flexibility, represent an appealing alternative to noble metals for designing ultra-compact plasmonic devices. On the other hand, this class of hybrid compounds has been proved to possess exceptionally high optical nonlinearities when operating on a frequency window centered around their crossover point, the wavelength point at which the real part of the dielectric permittivity switches sign. Because TCOs are wide-bandgap materials with the Fermi level located in the conduction band, they are hybrid in nature, thus presenting both interband and intraband nonlinearities. This is the cause of a very rich nonlinear physics that is yet to be fully understood and explored. In addition to this, TCOs are epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials within a broad near-infrared spectral range, including the entire telecom bandwidth. In this operational window a myriad of novel electromagnetic phenomena have been demonstrated experimentally such as supercoupling, wavefront freezing, and photon doping. Furthermore, TCOs stand out among all other ENZ systems due to one fundamental characteristic, which is hardly attainable even by using structured materials. In fact, around their ENZ wavelength and for a quite generous operational range, these materials can be engineered to have an extremely small real index. This peculiarity leads to a slow-light effect that is ultimately responsible for a significant enhancement of the material nonlinear properties and is the cornerstone of the emerging field of near-zero-index photonics. In this regard, the recent history of nonlinear optics in conductive oxides is growing extremely fast due to a great number of experiments reporting unprecedentedly remarkable effects, including unitary index change, bandwidth-large frequency shift, efficient ultra-low-power frequency conversion, and many others. This review is meant to guide the reader through the exciting journey of TCOs, starting as an industrial material for transparent electrodes, then becoming a new alternative for low-loss plasmonics, and recently opening up new frontiers in integrated nonlinear optics. The present review is mainly focused on experimental observations.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

In Situ Growth and Interlayer Modulation of Layered Double Hydroxide Thin Films from a Transparent Conducting Oxide Precursor

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are a class of cationic-layered solids that can be synthetically designed for a variety of advanced functions. Facile thin film growth of LDHs is an important requisite for a variety of applications including functional coatings, displays, and sensing. In this work we demonstrate, for the first time, an in-situ and patternable thin film synthesis of interconnected Zn-Cr LDH particles from a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) precursor, aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO), at room temperature within minutes. Synthetic parameters such as chromium (III) nitrate concentration, solvent composition, and reaction time were found to significantly affect the thickness and morphology of the resulting LDH films. These LDH thin films can undergo interlayer anion exchange, which modulates the interlayer distance of the LDH sheets and surface energy of the thin film. Replacement of the interlayer anion with perfluorooctanoate increases the interlayer sheet distance from 0.9 nm to 2.8 nm and induces a super-hydrophobic thin film that is capable of adsolubilizing and retaining organic guest molecules. The synthetic method and structural analysis of the LDH thin films introduced in this work opens new avenues of application for LDH films.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Open‐Air Combustion Synthesis with Rapid Plasma Processing of Large‐Area Transparent Conducting Oxides

A vacuum-free, high-throughput synthesis of indium tin oxide (ITO) via Combustion Oxidation with Rapid Plasma Processing (CORP) utilizes a solution-based exothermic combustion reaction to generate the oxide with tunable control of either amorphous or crystalline phases. A subsequent open-air, forming gas plasma treatment is used to introduce oxygen vacancies and promote crystallization. Here, the evolution of the oxide structure is elucidated by extended X-ray absorption spectroscopy fine structure analysis. Using CORP, fabrication of 300 cm 2 of ITO possessing a champion sheet resistance of 38 Ω sq. −1 , visible transmission of 89%, conductivity stability for over 250 days, roughness < 2nm, and Haacke figure of merit (%T 550nm 10 /R s ) of 0.012 Ω −1 is achieved. Cost modeling of CORP demonstrates up to a 67% reduction in price for TCOs using fully continuous, in-line unit operations compared with vacuum sputtering. The work shows a path toward a low-cost, vacuum-free manufacturing method for TCOs at commercial scales.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

High‐Order Nonlinear Frequency Conversion in Transparent Conducting Oxide Thin Films

The study of conductive oxides has gained momentum within the photonics community due to their unique linear and nonlinear optical properties. Despite recent experiments reporting on high harmonic generation from thin films, the optical/electronic behavior of these compounds at the nanoscale is still not fully understood due to the lack of a suitable theoretical model. In the present work, aluminum zinc oxide is excited near its epsilon-near-zero crossing point using incident femtosecond pulses having peak power densities in the 1 TW cm −2 range. A relatively efficient frequency up-conversion including even and odd harmonics up to the seventh order is observed. A hydrodynamic-Maxwell theoretical approach is adopted, capable of simultaneously taking into account linear and nonlinear dispersions, nonlocal effects, surface, magnetic, and bulk nonlinearities in a spectral region that spans over two and a half octaves from the UV to the NIR region. The study enables a deeper understanding of the fundamental material parameters regulating optical nonlinearities, providing important insights to engineer this class of materials for applications in sensing, ultra-fast physics, and spectroscopy.

material modeling↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Role of Cation Coordination in the Electrical and Optical Properties of Amorphous Transparent Conducting Oxides

Amorphous oxide semiconductor materials have demonstrated numerous advantages without compromise of electrical properties as compared to their crystalline counterparts, yet understanding of the fundamental principles allowing this has remained elusive. To study the origins of enhanced optoelectronic properties, we apply high-throughput, combinatorial sputtering, structural and spectral mapping, and computationally intensive ab initio molecular dynamics simulations with density functional theory to a ternary, post-transition metal oxide system, namely, zinc tin oxide. The deposited thin films exhibit a high figure of merit, achieving carrier densities in the range of 1019 to 1020 cm–3 and carrier mobilities up to 35 cm2/Vs. These results highlight the role of local distortions and cation coordination in determining the microscopic origins of carrier generation and transport. In particular, we identify the strong likelihood of Sn undercoordination in both Zn-poor and Zn-rich phases leading to the high carrier concentrations observed. This not only diverges from the still widespread historical indictment of oxygen vacancies controlling carrier population in crystalline oxides but also provides a comprehensive framework to describe the unique structure–property relationships using specific structural and electronic descriptors in disordered phase materials.

CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS,M↗
DOE OSTI2020

Article with transparent conductive oxide coating

A solar cell includes a first substrate having a first surface and a second surface. An underlayer is located over the second surface. A first conductive layer is located over the underlayer. An overlayer is located over the first conductive layer. A semiconductor layer is located over the conductive oxide layer. A second conductive layer is located over the semiconductor layer. The first conductive layer includes a conductive oxide and at least one dopant selected from the group consisting of tungsten, molybdenum, niobium, and/or fluorine.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Pressure Engineering Promising Transparent Oxides with Large Conductivity Enhancement and Strong Thermal Stability

Abstract Transparent conducting oxides (TCO) with high electrical conductivity and high visible light transparency are desired for a wide range of high‐impact engineering. Yet, usually, a compromise must be made between conductivity and transparency, limiting the practical application of a TCO to the next level. Furthermore, TCO performance is highly sensitive to composition, so conventional synthesis methods, such as chemical doping, cannot unravel the mysteries of the quantitative structure–performance relationship. Thus, improving the fundamental understanding or creating materials‐by‐design has limited success. Here, a strategy is proposed to modulate the lattice and electronic and optical properties precisely by applying pressure on a TCO. Strikingly, after compression–decompression treatment on the indium titanium oxides (ITiO), a highly transparent and metastable phase with two orders of magnitude enhancement in conductivity is synthesized from an irreversible phase transition. Moreover, this phase possesses previously unattainable filter efficiency on hazardous blue light up to 600 °C, providing potential for healthcare‐related applications with strong thermal stability up to 200 °C. These results demonstrate that pressure engineering is a clean and effective tool for tailoring functional materials that are not achievable by other means, providing an exciting alternative property‐tuning dimension in materials science.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Super Flexible Transparent Conducting Oxide-Free Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells with 19.01% Efficiency (Active Area=1 cm 2 )

Highly efficient organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (OIHP-SCs) are often fabricated on a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) substrate such as indium tin oxide (ITO). However, the presence of TCOs is disadvantageous to the development of flexible OIHP-SCs due to the brittle nature of ITO which is easily breakable during bending. Herein, a flexible TCO-free OIHP-SC is demonstrated by using lithium bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide (Li-TFSI) as a codopant for the single-layer graphene transparent conducting electrode and poly(triarylamine) hole-transporting material (HTM) on a flexible polydimethylsiloxane substrate. The optical and electrical properties of the Li-TFSI-doped graphene substrate are measured by controlling the doping amount and the best conditions for charge extraction are established at a doping concentration of 20 mm Li-TFSI, thus optimizing the device photovoltaic performance. As a result, a highest power conversion efficiency of 19.01% is demonstrated by the flexible TCO-free OIHP-SC devices with an active area of 1 cm 2 . In addition, the flexible TCO-free OIHP-SCs exhibit good bending stability after 5000 bending cycles at radii of 6, 4, and 2 mm and excellent light soaking stability under 1 Sun light intensity over 1000 h as opposed to the poor stability when using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate as the HTM.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Indium Tin-Doped Oxide Interactions with Solvent Radiolysis Products

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), such as indium tin-doped oxide (ITO), are ubiquitous as components of electronics and are ideal electrode substrates for catalysis, energy transformation reactions, and energy storage applications. Recently, researchers have recognized their effectiveness as electrode materials for manipulating actinide oxidation states in solution. Despite their popularity as electrode materials, prior studies focused extensively on the direct radiolysis of TCO materials in air and rarely examined these effects within a solution, limiting our fundamental understanding of the interactions between solvent radiolysis products and these substrates in high radiation environments. Here, in this study, we characterize the effects of solvent radiolysis products—arising from the gamma irradiation of water, aqueous nitric acid solutions, and n-dodecane—on the composition, surface speciation, and band structure of ITO thin films on a glass substrate as a function of absorbed dose using UV-visible spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, photoelectrochemistry, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Our work demonstrates that mesoporous thin film electrodes of ITO exposed to gamma radiation in each solvent accumulate defects and exhibit solvent and dose dependent changes to their surface and interfacial properties. These electrodes maintain their electrochemical function and improve their photoelectrochemical performance up to at least 100 kGy of accumulated gamma dose, confirming their utility in solvents exposed to ionizing radiation fields.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Local Resistance Measurement for Degradation of c-Si Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin Layer (HIT) Solar Modules

Silicon heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (or HIT) modules typically degrade at a rate of less than 1% annually in solar fields with dominant degradation in open-circuit voltage and some degradation in series resistance. However, detailed mechanisms can differ from module to module. Here, we study increases in local series resistance that occur over long-term field deployment, indicated by cell areas where the photoluminescence intensity does not degrade but the electroluminescence degrades significantly. To directly measure the local series resistance, we have cored out the local electroluminescence-degraded area, and we measured the sheet resistance by 4-point-probe and local nm-scale resistance using scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM). The results by 4-point-probe show scattered sheet resistance that can be caused, for example, by nonuniform current paths through the transparent conductive oxide layer, the a-Si:H emitter, or the near-junction c-Si inversion layer. In contrast, the SSRM results indicate a relatively uniform and non-degraded resistivity on smaller nanometer spatial scales. SSRM is an atomic force microscopy-based two-terminal resistance mapping technique that measures the local resistance in nm-volume beneath the probe. The consistent resistances measured on the control and degraded samples can exclude the degradation of transparent conductive oxide resistance.

41 EE - Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)↗
DOE OSTI2022

Tin sensitization and silver activation on indium tin oxide surfaces

Adhesion of electrical contacts on electronic and optoelectronic devices is important for reliable device operation. Sn-sensitization is a widely used process that improves uniformity and adhesion of plated metals to glass and polymer surfaces. Electrically conductive substrates can significantly benefit from improved uniformity, adhesion, and contact resistance to metallic contact layers. In this study, we investigate the process of Sn-sensitization and Ag-activation on indium tin oxide (ITO) surfaces—a dominant transparent conducting oxide used in optoelectronic devices. Here, our results show that ITO films exposed to Sn-sensitization solutions with HCl concentrations below 10 mM effectively modify the surface termination through the process of Sn-sensitization (Sn-bonding at the surface hydroxide sites) without etching the ITO film. However, the subsequent Ag-activation on an ITO surface does not seem to follow the typical response on a glass substrate, suggesting that Ag-activation of an ITO surface is likely limited by the Ag ion size relative to the area density of surface hydroxide sensitization sites.

42 ENGINEERING↗