Figure of merit for TCO material

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 Contents

1. Introduction

2. Figures of merit for TCO

3. Conclusion

4. References

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 1. Introduction
The materials which possess both optical and electrical properties are known as
transparent conductors or TCs. These are usually in the form of thin films and
usually made from heavily doped metal oxide semiconductor which has a wide
band gap. In addition, there are transparent conductors which are made from
metal films, metal nitrides or doped organic polymers too. Most commonly
used ones are made of tin oxide, indium oxide, zinc oxide, and cadmium oxide.
Or a combinations of these materials. Since the band gap energy usually about
3.2–3.8 eV is higher than the photon energy in the visible portion of the
spectrum at about 1.8–3.0 eV those material are largely transparent in the
visible portion of the spectrum. There is a wide use of TCOs such as in
architectural glasses heat reflecting coatings , HD TVs, touch screens or
in solar cells. In the most types of solar cells, TCO is used as a current
collecting electrode on sun facing side.

Different TCO in different substrates

But when using different material as TCO, their performance and

characteristics are differ from each other. In order to evaluate and
compare the each transparent conductors, different figure of merits have
been taken from different researches. Following are some of those figure
of merits on evaluating TCOs.

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 2. Figures of merit for TCO

Most of the time a suitable TCO for a specific application is determined

by evaluating and comparing their properties such as optical, mechanical,
electrical properties or chemical stability and material availability. But
commonly all the applications for TCO material requires optimization of
electrical and optical coating parameters. There will be some minimum
limits of these parameters to exceed depending on the device which use
TCOs. But in general, both electrical and optical parameters should be as
high as possible.

One study done at American Cyanamid Company, Stamford, gives a

figure of merit for TCOs by evaluating their optical and electrical
properties. Both those properties are characterized by electrical sheet
resistance �� and optical transmission �.
Here the sheet resistance is denoted by, �� , the resistance of a square
surface area.

�� = 1 ��

where,
�= electrical conductivity in Ω−1 ��−1
� = Coating thickness in cm.

And the definition of optical transmission is taken by the ratio of

incoming radiation to the coating �0 and outgoing radiation � from the
opposite side of the sample.

� = � � = exp (−��)
0
where,
� is the optical absorption coefficient.

And their suggested figure of merit is denoted by ��� ,

��� = � �� = �� exp (−��)

And according to the given equation, the figure of merit is a function of

coating thickness and will have a maximum achievable value. This
���� can be calculated as,
���� =
1 �
And the results suggest that the maximum figure of merit can be achieved
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at the thin film thickness where the optical transmission is at only 37%.

And due to the low amount of optical transmission, another figure of

merit is suggested. As the early figure of merit more depends on the the
film. In order to have a better balance, following figure of merit is
suggested.

��� = �� ��

where x >1 and the minimum thickness is now given from,

���� = 1 ��
And the optimum value is selected as 10 for practical purposes and at
maximum ��� with 90% of optical transmission rather than 37% of the
previous method. Following graph shows calculated ��� vs film
thickness for some TCO materials.

Figure of merit ��� vs film thickness

Another performance measure for transparent conductors is the electrical

conductivity to visible absorption. In order to be an effective transparent
conductor, the visible absorption must be a low value while electrical
conduction is high. And the ratio between electrical conductivity (�) to
the visible absorption coefficient (�) can be taken as another figure of
merit for TCOs.

� � = (�0 ln (� + �))−1

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Where,
�0 = Sheet resistance
T = Total visible transmission
R = Total visible reflectance

If the � � is larger, that indicates better performance of the transparent

conductor. Following are some figures of merit for several transparent
conductors.

Figure of merit � � for several TCO

According to the table, the best performance is given by fluorine doped

zinc oxides. Also due to the fact that properties of transparent conductors
depend on the thickness of the film, the figure of merit is said to be
increased along with the film thickness.

An alternative figure of merit is used by a research done in university of

Yucatan. This study evaluates transparent conductor oxides from their
photonic flux density to use in solar cells. They calculate the photo
current density over TCO film sheet resistance as the figure of merit.

When a PN junction of a semiconductor coverts solar radiation energy

into electrical energy, the photo current density (��� ) that the junction
can provide to an external load is related to photonic flux density and can
be shown as follows.
����
(��� )��� = � ��
��� ℎ� �(ℎ�)

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where,
� = electron charger
���� = TCO layer band gap energy
�� = Absorption layer band gap energy
��� ℎ� = photon flux density of energy ℎ�
And the figure of merit is defined as follows,
(��� )���
�� =
��ℎ���

As the (��� )��� is a defined physical parameter which has defined units
and meanings, and since the ideal values of cell photocurrent in solar
cells determined by it, this figure is merit said to have a better insight for
optical and electrical properties of TCOs in solar cell applications. Also,
the joule effect losses are proportional to the denominator of the figure of
merit equation making it more suitable for solar cell applications.
Following table shows figure of merits of some TCOs.

Figure of merit �� for several TCO

3. Conclusion

As there are several types of TCOs available, their electrical, optical,

thermal stability and other properties differ from each other. TCO are
used in variety of applications including solar cells, touch screens, HD
TVs, etc. which requires different sets of performances per each
application. So, the optimum TCO for one application might not be
optimum for another application. Hence the requirement of different
figures of merit is crucial for selecting optimum TCO with different
performances. Following tables shows some of the optimum TCO for

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different applications.

Different choices for TCO material with different performances

4. References

[1]G. Haacke, “New figure of merit for transparent conductors,” Journal

of Applied Physics, vol. 47, no. 9. AIP Publishing, pp. 4086–4089, Sep.
1976. doi: 10.1063/1.323240.

[2]R. Gordon, Preparation and properties of transparent conductors.

Cambridge, MA 02138: Department of chemistry, Harvard University,
1996.

[3]J. A. Mendez-Gamboa, R. Castro-Rodriguez, I. V. Perez-Quintana, R.

A. Medina-Esquivel, and A. Martel-Arbelo, “A figure of merit to evaluate
transparent conductor oxides for solar cells using photonic flux density,”
Thin Solid Films, vol. 599. Elsevier BV, pp. 14–18, Jan. 2016. doi:
10.1016/j.tsf.2015.12.038.

[4]J.F. Wager, D.A. Keszler, R.E. Presley, Transparent Electronics,

Springer, New York,2008.

[5]J. Britt, C. Ferekides, Thin-film CdS/CdTe solar cell with 15.8%

efficiency, Appl. Phys.Lett. 62 (1993) 2851–2852.

[6] C. Ferekides, J. Britt, CdTe solar cells with efficiencies over 15%, Sol.
Energy Mater.Sol. Cells 35 (1994) 255–262