The effect of zinc doping on the surface roughness, near IR transmitting and reflecting properties of antimony trioxide thin film

Present work analyses the effect of zinc doping on the surface roughness of antimony trioxide thin film and its corresponding influence on near Infrared (NIR) transmitting and reflecting properties. For the synthesis of Zn doped Sb2O3 thin film, solid state grinding followed by vacuum thermal evaporation was used. Zinc doping induces surface modification in Sb2O3 thin film which in turn reduces its surface roughness. This reduction in surface roughness increases the NIR reflectance from the film surface because the radiative reflectance of a material is a function of surface roughness and surface contaminants. The transmittance increases for lower Zn concentration whereas it decreases for high Zn concentration. Thus use of Sb2O3 in Zn based thin film solar cells can highly influence the solar cell efficiency.