Preparation and Properties of P-Type Transparent Conductive NiO Films

Abstract

The NiO-Cu composite films with various Cu contents of 0 – 18.17 at.% are deposited on glass substrate. An ultra high electrical resistivity (ρ) is obtained and cannot be detected by four point probe measurement when the Cu contents in the films are lower than 6.97 at.%. The ρ value is reduced significantly to 35.8 Ω-cm as Cu content is increased to 9.18 at.%, and it further decreases to 0.02 Ω-cm when the Cu content further increases to 18.17 at.%. The Hall measurement for all Cu-doped NiO films show p-type conduction. In addition, the transmittance of NiO films also decreases continuously from 96 % to 43 % as Cu content increases from 0 to 18.17 at.%. The XRD patterns of Cu-doped NiO films only appear NiO peaks and the crystallinity of NiO films becomes worse as Cu content is added to above 6.97 at.%. Large amount of lattice sites of Ni2+ ions in NiO crystalline are replaced by the Cu+ ions that leads to p-type conduction and result in the degradation of crystallinity for NiO-Cu composite films having higher Cu content.