Design, Growth, and Characterization of Crystalline Copper Oxide p‑Type Transparent Semiconductive Thin Films with Figures of Merit Suitable for Their Incorporation into Translucent Devices

The development of high-performance p-type transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) is a scientific challenge. Cupric oxide (CuO) and cuprous oxide (Cu2O) are attractive candidates for manufacturing p-type TCOs due to their optoelectronic properties. However, tailoring the copper oxide optical absorptio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Crystal growth & design Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 2168 - 2180
Main Authors: Aguilar del Valle, Maria del Pilar, Garrido, Luis Fernando, Alonso-Huitrón, Juan Carlos, Terrones Pacheco, Luis augusto, Cruz-Manjarrez, Héctor, Reyes-Gasga, Jose, Pérez-Martínez, Ana Laura, Rodríguez-Gómez, Arturo
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: American Chemical Society 06-04-2022
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The development of high-performance p-type transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) is a scientific challenge. Cupric oxide (CuO) and cuprous oxide (Cu2O) are attractive candidates for manufacturing p-type TCOs due to their optoelectronic properties. However, tailoring the copper oxide optical absorption and sheet resistance using scalable and simple synthesis methods is not easy. This work presents a straightforward and highly reproducible methodology based on DC sputtering plus thermal treatments to manufacture copper oxide p-type TCOs with optimal figures of merit. We demonstrate that a low-temperature long-time annealing is capable of changing the conductivity and average transmittance of a determined copper oxide TCO. Our proposed long thermal treatment produces a decrease in the TCO average transmittance from 82 to 67%, but, in return, it generates an increment in the conductivity of 3 orders of magnitude from 2.5 × 10–5 S/cm up to 0.048 S/cm. We estimate that these p-type TCOs could be used to build diverse translucent experimental devices where a p–n heterojunction is required.
ISSN:1528-7483
1528-7505
DOI:10.1021/acs.cgd.1c01243