Microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) thin films with and without boron doping are deposited using the radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition method. The surface roughness evolutions of the silicon thin films are investigated using ex situ spectroscopic ellipsometry and an atomic force microscope. It is shown that the growth exponentβ and the roughness exponent cχ are about 0.369 and 0.95 for the undoped thin film, respectively. Whereas, for the boron-doped μc-Si:H thin film, t3 increases to 0.534 and cχ decreases to 0.46 due to the shadowing effect.
Indium doped zinc oxide (ZnO:In) thin films were prepared by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis on corning eagle 2000 glass substrate. 1 and 2 at.% indium doped single-layer ZnO:In thin films with different amounts of acetic acid added in the initial solution were fabricated. The 1 at.% indium doped single-layers have triangle grains. The 2 at.% indium doped single-layer with 0.18 acetic acid adding has the resistivity of 6.82 × 10^-3 Ω. cm and particle grains. The doublelayers structure is designed to fabricate the ZnO:In thin film with low resistivity (2.58 × 10^-3 Ω. cm) and good surface morphology. It is found that the surface morphology of the double-layer ZnO:In film strongly depends on the substratelayer, and the second-layer plays a large part in the resistivity of the doublewlayer ZnO:In thin film. Both total and direct transmittances of the double-layer ZnO:In film are above 80% in the visible light region. Single junction a-Si:H solar cell based on the double-layer ZnO:In as front electrode is also investigated.