Grass-like alumina enhances transmittance and electrical conductivity of atomic layer deposited Al-doped ZnO for thermoelectric and TCO applications

Transparent thermoelectric materials enable the integration of sensing and energy harvesting devices on various surfaces such as windows user interfaces. A key constraint for device performance in applications is available surface area from which power should be harvested without compromising optical properties. Here, we demonstrate atomic layer deposition (ALD) aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO), most prominent n-type material, grass-like alumina (GLA), a high-performance, low-cost antireflective coating. The conformal nature ALD process enables AZO growth to closely follow topography underlying GLA film, therefore providing an increased effective compared reference film grown directly plain glass. films show improved electrical conductivity attributed additional doping by GLA. effect pronounced at lower thicknesses, resulting 228% increase 80% factor 32 nm thick films. Moreover, GLA-AZO partly inherit behavior thus showing transparency Our results promote transparent with performance.