TY - JOUR
T1 - Plasmon generation in sputtered Ga-doped MgZnO thin films for solar cell applications
AU - Awasthi, Vishnu
AU - Pandey, Sushil Kumar
AU - Garg, Vivek
AU - Sengar, Brajendra S.
AU - Sharma, Pankaj
AU - Kumar, Shailendra
AU - Mukherjee, C.
AU - Mukherjee, Shaibal
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Author(s).
PY - 2016/6/21
Y1 - 2016/6/21
N2 - The crystalline, electrical, morphological, optical properties and plasmonic behaviour of Ga doped MgZnO (GMZO) thin films grown at different substrate temperatures (200-600 °C) by a dual ion beam sputtering (DIBS) system are investigated. Transmittance value of more than ∼94% in 400-1000 nm region is observed for all GMZO films. The particle plasmon features can be detected in the absorption coefficient spectra of GMZO grown at 500 and 600 °C in the form of a peak at ∼4.37 eV, which corresponds to a plasmon resonance peak of nanoclusters formed in GMZO. The presence of such plasmonic features is confirmed by ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. The values of particle plasmon resonance energy of various nanoclusters are in the range of solar spectrum, and these can easily be tuned and excited at the desirable wavelengths while optimizing the efficiency of solar cells (SCs) by simple alteration of DIBS growth temperature. These nanoclusters are extremely promising to enhance the optical scattering and trapping of the incident light, which increases the optical path length in the absorber layer of cost-effective SCs and eventually increases its efficiency.
AB - The crystalline, electrical, morphological, optical properties and plasmonic behaviour of Ga doped MgZnO (GMZO) thin films grown at different substrate temperatures (200-600 °C) by a dual ion beam sputtering (DIBS) system are investigated. Transmittance value of more than ∼94% in 400-1000 nm region is observed for all GMZO films. The particle plasmon features can be detected in the absorption coefficient spectra of GMZO grown at 500 and 600 °C in the form of a peak at ∼4.37 eV, which corresponds to a plasmon resonance peak of nanoclusters formed in GMZO. The presence of such plasmonic features is confirmed by ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. The values of particle plasmon resonance energy of various nanoclusters are in the range of solar spectrum, and these can easily be tuned and excited at the desirable wavelengths while optimizing the efficiency of solar cells (SCs) by simple alteration of DIBS growth temperature. These nanoclusters are extremely promising to enhance the optical scattering and trapping of the incident light, which increases the optical path length in the absorber layer of cost-effective SCs and eventually increases its efficiency.
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U2 - 10.1063/1.4953877
DO - 10.1063/1.4953877
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84975221684
SN - 0021-8979
VL - 119
JO - Journal of Applied Physics
JF - Journal of Applied Physics
IS - 23
M1 - 233101
ER -