Manipulation of optical and electrical properties of ZnO thin films via embedded nano structure

The semiconductor ZnO has gained great interest in the past decades because of its wide bandgap and large exciton binding energy. Especially, the doping and embedded metal nano-particles methods could improve the conductivity of ZnO thin films, which made it possible to fabricate transparent conducting oxides based on ZnO. In the present study, Al-doped ZnO thin layer was employed to manipulate the electrical and optical properties. The band engineering in ZnO makes it possible to manipulate the absorption, emission, reflection spectral of ZnO via the embedded quantum well layer. The ZnO thin films with excellent performance in electrical conductivity and optical transmittance are promising to be applied in the devices including the lager flat screen, touch panel, portable digital device and smart windows. In the present study, we summarized the recent progress in ZnO with embedded metal nanoparticles and application in TCOs.