Investigation of Conductivity Characteristics of Zn-In Thin Films

Abstract

Zn-In-Se thin films were fabricated on the ultrasonically cleaned glass substrates masked with clover-shaped geometry by thermal evaporation of its elemental sources. Temperature-dependent conductivity characteristics of the films were investigated under dark and illuminated conditions. The semiconductor type of the films was found as n-type by thermal probe test. According to the van der Pauw technique, the dark electrical conductivity analyses showed that the variations of conductivity of unannealed and annealed at 300 degrees C samples are in exponential dependence of temperature. These conductivity profiles were found to be dominated by the thermionic emission at high temperature region whereas their behaviors at low temperatures were modeled by hopping theory. On the contrary, as a result of the further annealing temperatures, the surface of the samples showed semi-metallic characteristics with deviating from expected Arrhenius behavior. In addition, the temperature-dependent photoconductivity of the films was analyzed under different illumination intensities and the results were explained by the supra-linear characteristic based on the two-center recombination model.