Highly Transparent and Conductive Indium-Free Vanadates Crystallized at Reduced Temperature on Glass Using a 2D Transparent Nanosheet Seed Layer

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) is a widely employed transparent conducting oxide (TCO), but the indium scarcity and price encourage developing some alternatives. The correlated metals CaVO3 and SrVO3 have been recently identified as new TCOs with functional properties being comparable to ITO. However, their technological potential is limited by the critical requirement of a perovskite structure of the film, impossible to achieve via direct growth on substrates commonly used for applications. In this article, the authors tackle this limitation by demonstrating the crystalline growth of vanadate TCOs on glass at temperatures below 600 degrees C, with the help of 2D nanosheets as transparent seed layers. The functional properties do not suffer from the textured structure of the films, as confirmed by an in-depth spectroscopic ellipsometry study, allowing for an industrially viable approach to integrate vanadate TCOs on virtually any surface and to exploit their promising performances as a new generation TCO.

Automated summary

The correlated metals CaVO3 and SrVO3 have been identified as new TCOs with properties comparable to ITO, but their technological potential is limited by requiring a perovskite structure in the film. However, authors demonstrate the crystalline growth of vanadate TCOs on glass below 600 degrees C, using 2D nanosheets as seed layers, enabling industrially viable integration on virtually any surface with promising performances.