Highly transparent and conducting boron doped zinc oxide films for window of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell applications

Highly transparent and conducting boron doped zinc oxide (ZnO:B) films grown by sol-gel method are reported. The annealing temperature is varied from 350 to 550 degrees C and doping concentration of boron is kept fixed for 0.6 at.% for all the films. At low temperature the stress in the films is compressive, which becomes tensile for the films annealed at higher temperature. A minimum resistivity of 7.9 x 10(-4) Omega cm and maximum transmittance of similar to 91% are observed for the film annealed at 450 degrees C. This could be attributed to minimum stress of films, which is further evident by the evolution of A(1) and defect related Raman modes without any shifting in its position. Such kind of highly transparent and conducting ZnO:B thin film could be used as window material in Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSsC). Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.