Design and Fabrication of Nanostructured SnO2/Ag/MoO3 Films for Use in Optoelectronic Devices

In this paper, transparent conductive SnO2/Ag/MoO3 (SAM) multilayer system is designed and optimum thicknesses of each layer are calculated to achieve high optical transmittance and low sheet resistance simultaneously. SAM nanostructured films were deposited on glass substrate by thermal evaporation technique and then were annealed in air atmosphere at 150 °C for 1 hour. We investigated some electrical, optical and structural properties of this multilayer system such as sheet resistance, optical transmittance, reflectance, figure of merit and surface roughness. High quality SAM layers with a low sheet resistance of 12.5 (Ω/□) and the maximum optical transmittance of 90% in visible wavelength region were obtained for the optimized SAM system. The crystallite size of SnO2 and Ag were estimated about 27 (1) and 19 (5) nm, respectively, using diffraction analysis. Low electrical resistivity and high optical transmittance make it possible to use these layers as transparent electrode in optoelectronics applications. The results show that the fabricated photovoltaic cells on SAM multilayer system have higher power conversion efficiency compared to that fabricated on the conventional ITO films.