Effect of band gap energy on the electrical conductivity in doped ZnO thin film

The transparent conductive pure and doped zinc oxide thin films with aluminum, cobalt and indium were deposited by ultrasonic spray technique on glass substrate at 350 C. This paper is to present a new approach to the description of correlation between electrical conductivity and optical gap energy with dopants’ concentration of Al, Co and In. The correlation between the electrical and optical properties with doping level suggests that the electrical conductivity of the films is predominantly estimated by the band gap energy and the concentrations of Al, Co and In. The measurement in the electrical conductivity of doped films with correlation is equal to the experimental value, the error of this correlation is smaller than 13%. The minimum error value was estimated in the cobalt-doped ZnO thin films. This result indicates that such Co-doped ZnO thin films are chemically purer and have far fewer defects and less disorder owing to an almost complete chemical decomposition.