Effects of deposition temperature on characteristics of Ga-doped ZnO film prepared by highly efficient cylindrical rotating magnetron sputtering for organic solar cells

We report the characteristics of Ga-doped zinc oxide (GZO) films prepared by a highly efficient cylindrical rotating magnetron sputtering (CRMS) system as a function of substrate temperature for use as a transparent conducting electrode in bulk hetero-junction organic solar cells (OSCs). Using a rotating cylindrical GZO target, low sheet resistance (∼11.67 Ω/square) and highly transparent (90%) GZO films were deposited with high usage (∼80%) of the cylindrical GZO target. High usage of the cylindrical GZO target in the CRMS system indicates that CRMS is a promising deposition technique to prepare cost-efficient GZO electrodes for low cost OSCs. Resistivity and optical transmittance of the CRMS-grown GZO film were mainly affected by substrate temperature because the grain size and activation of the Ga dopant were critically dependent on the substrate temperature. In addition, the performance of OSC fabricated on GZO electrode sputtered at 230 °C (11.67 Ω/square) is better than OSC fabricated on as-deposited GZO electrode (29.20 Ω/square). OSCs fabricated on the GZO electrode sputtered at 230 °C showed an open circuit voltage of 0.558 V, short circuit current of 8.987 m A/cm², fill factor of 0.628 and power conversion efficiency of 3.149%.