Research

Transparent Conducting Oxides (TCOs)

Transparent conducting oxides are an important material class for many opto-electronic devices such as displays, photovoltaic solar cells and light emitting diods (LEDs). The groups research is focussed on investigation novel TCO materials such as the new p-type transparent conducting oxide, Cr₂O₃:(Mg,N) found by us in 2011.

p-type TCOs

Our largest research project in the field of TCOs concerns hole conducting transparent (semi)conducting oxides. Such p-type TCOs are much sought after for fully transparent oxide electronics and can also help to improve efficiencies of solar cells and LEDs.

The performance of well known p-type TCOs is still rather poor. In the group we investigate a new, promising material based on Cr₂O₃. In particular we are interested in:

Doping and conduction mechanisms in p-type TCOs
Investigations of correlation of growth conditions to optical and electrical properties
Applications of p-type TCOs in organic photovoltaic solar cells
Fundamental investigations of interface formation in fully transparent p-n junctions

Modified n-type TCOs

We also investigate ways to modify some core properties of well known n-type TCOs such as SnO₂:F (FTO) and ZnO:Al (AZO) in terms of refractive index modifications, band gap engineering, and optical scattering properties (haze). Our work includes:

Elemental substitution to alter the optical properties of such TCOs
Investigations of novel layered structures for effective medium materials

Selected Publications

Title:
- Improving solar cell efficiency with optically optimised TCO layers
Authors:
- Fleischer, K.; Arca, E.; Shvets, I. V.
Source:
- Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 101, p262 (2012)
TARA:
- Full text (Trinity open access repository)

Title:
- Effect of Chemical Precursors On the Optical and Electrical Properties of p-Type Transparent Conducting Cr₂O₃:(Mg,N)
Authors:
- Elisabetta Arca, Karsten Fleischer, Sergey A. Krasnikov, and Igor Shvets
Source:
- J. Phys. Chem. C 117, p21901 (2013)
TARA:
- Full text (Trinity open access repository)

Title:
- Spray pyrolysis growth of a high figure of merit, nano-crystalline, p-type transparent conducting material at low temperature
Authors:
- L. Farrell, E. Norton, B. J. O'Dowd, D. Caffrey, I. V. Shvets and K. Fleischer
Source:
- Appl. Phys. Lett. 107, 031901 (2015)

People working on Transparent Conducting Oxides

Daragh Mullarkey

Office: CRANN, 2.24
Email: mullarkd@tcd.ie
Tel: +353 (0) 896 3808
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Dr. Karsten Fleischer

Office: CRANN, 2.25
Email: fleisck@tcd.ie
Tel: +353 (0) 896 3649
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