Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Indium tin oxide (ITO) can be made a highly conductive transparent coating contact in photovoltaics by doping. Undoped and Mn doped indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films were grown on SiO₂/Si substrates by vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE) using sources with atomic ratios of In:Sn:Mn=114:12:13, 109:12:7, 122:12:4, and 122:12:0. In order to have practically stress-free ITO films [1], all the samples were annealed at 450 ^oC for 2 hours in air. Magnetotransport measurements reveal negative magnetoresistance while no anomalous Hall effect is observed. The Mn-doped ITO films exhibit room temperature ferromagnetism after annealing. We analyzed the magnetization data from SQUID measurements using simulations based on the Preisach approach and derived the magnetic parameters of nanoparticles in the Mn-doped ITO films, namely, the magnetization of individual particles and the distributions of coercive and interparticle interaction fields. The samples were also investigated by magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy and Vector Magnetooptical Generalized Ellipsometry measurements to explore possible combined functionalities in photovoltaics and magnetooptics.

[1] L Kerkache et al., J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 39 184–189, (2006).