Comparison of Aluminium Thin Film Deposited on Different Polymer Substrates with Thermal Evaporation for Solar Cell Applications

This paper studies the properties of thermally evaporated 1 μm of aluminium (Al) thin films on polyimide (PI) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates at room temperature with thermal evaporation in a vacuum of about 3 x 10 -5 Torr for use as window materials for solar cells. Effects of substrate types on the structural and electrical characteristics of the films were studied. Sets of experiments were conducted to optimize the deposition of Al films with appropriate deposition parameters. The deposited films were analyzed with atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), Xray diffraction (XRD). Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectra shows presence of Al contacts on both PI and PET substrates. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results illustrate proper formation of Al (111) plane at 38.4 o with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 0.1968° on both samples. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images reveal that both samples possess smooth surfaces with surface roughness root mean square (RMS) below 10 nm.