Low-cost Sn-doped Indium Oxide Films with High Mobility by Reactive Plasma Deposition for Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Sn-doped indium oxide (ITO) film is one of the widely used transparent conductive oxide (TCO) materials. In recent years, reactive plasma deposition (RPD) technology has been used to prepare high-quality ITO film. Here, indium tin alloy is used to replace indium tin oxide as the evaporation source of RPD. By reacting with oxygen, the ITO film with a conductivity of 3.40 × 103 S cm−1 and a mobility of 121.40 cm2 V−1 s−1 is deposited. The high mobility is mainly due to the high film crystallization rate, high doping efficiency and low Sn doping concentration. The ITO films are used as transparent conducting electrodes in silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells, and a conversion efficiency of 25.38 % is achieved. Compared with conventional ITO films prepared using oxide targets, reaction-deposited ITO films using indium tin alloy have lower cost and higher quality, it is more suitable for mass production.