SnO2 polycrystalline thin films were prepared by magnetic reactive sputtering.The structural,optical and electrical properties of the films before and after annealing were studied.X-ray diffraction results show that the films annealed at 510 ℃ for 1 h are polycrystalline SnO2 with a single phase of tetragonal structure.Optical transmission measurements yield optical band gaps between 3.79 eV to 3.92 eV.The resistivity of an annealed film is 8.5 Ω·cm and its activation energy of conductivity is 0.322 eV,deriving from the relation of dark conductivity vs temperature.The results show that SnO2 high resistant films grown by this method could be used in CdTe solar cells as the buffer layer.

AlSb thin films are prepared using two-stage processes. Al and Sb are deposited onto a glass substrate by magnetron sputtering to produce Al/Sb prefabricated films. The prefabricated films become polycrystalline after being annealed at 560°C in argon atmosphere. Different film structures and compositions are characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. It is found that the polycrystalline AlSb films are uniformly packed with a grain size of about 20 nm. Conductance activation energies of 0.21 and 0.321 eV are obtained from the dark conductivity temperature curves. This will be useful for future fabrication of AlSb solar cells.

AlSb polycrystalline thin films are prepared by vacuum co-evaporation and post-annealing. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of the films are studied. X-ray diffraction results show that the films annealed at 540°C are polycrystalline AlSb with a single-phase fcc structure. Optical transmission measurements indicate an indirect optical band gap of 1.62 eV.The activation energy of conductivity is 0.33 eV, as derived from the relation of dark conductivity versus temperature. These results show that AlSb thin films could become important materials for novel solar cells.