Shane O’Brien*, Keith Linehan, Hugh Doyle, Andrew Kingsley, Chris Ashfield, Bettina Frank, Ling Xie, Klaus Leifer, Philippe Thony, Simon Perraud , Martyn E. Pemble and Ian M. Povey

2015

January

Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology

Indium tin oxide–silicon nanocrystal nanocomposite grown by aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition

Published

()

nanocinposite; aerosol assisted CVD; HT-TEM Tomography

Nanocomposite films were successfully grown by aerosol-assisted CVD in a single deposition step using a mixture of Indium Tin neodecanoate and ligand stabilised silicon nanocrystals. Samples were analysed by HRTEM and silicon nanocrystals with a density of 1.2 × 10 12 cm-2 were observed. From the reconstructed 3D tomogram, the averaged distance between the nearest nanoparticles is 8.3 nm and the 3D density of nanoparticles is 1.6 × 10 18 cm-3. An animation of the 3D reconstruction is supplied in supporting information. These data show the versatility of aerosol assisted CVD, as achieving such a density of silicon nanocrystals of carefully controlled size and shape within a polycrystalline host matrix by currently used methods would be significantly more complex and less controlled than the nanocomposite produced by the approach taken here. Therefore, these nanocomposite films meet requirements for further development in PV test structures, in terms of having a narrow size distribution of silicon nanocrystals within a 2-5 nm particle diameter range with a surface concentration of 10 12 cm-2 contained within a transparent conductive oxide matrix.

10.1007/s10971-015-3618-3

European Framework Programme Seven (FP7)

FP7 Project SNAPSUN