Improving the performance of nickel-coated fluorine-doped tin oxide thin films by magnetic-field-assisted laser annealing

Highlights: • Ni/FTO films were prepared by sputtering Ni layers on commercial FTO glass. • The as-prepared Ni/FTO films underwent magnetic-field-assisted laser annealing. • Magnetic field and laser fluence were crucial for improving quality of the films. • All Ni/FTO films displayed enhanced compactness after magnetic laser annealing. • Magnetic laser annealing using a fluence of 0.9 J/cm² led to the best film quality. - Abstract: Nickel-coated fluorine-doped tin oxide (Ni/FTO) thin films were prepared by sputtering Ni layers on commercial FTO glass. The as-prepared Ni/FTO films underwent nanosecond pulsed laser annealing in an external magnetic field (0.4 T). The effects of the presence of magnetic field and laser fluence on surface morphology, crystal structure and photoelectric properties of the films were investigated. All the films displayed enhanced compactness after magnetic-field-assisted laser annealing. It was notable that both crystallinity and grain size of the films gradually increased with increasing laser fluence from 0.6 to 0.9 J/cm², and then decreased slightly with an increase in laser fluence to 1.1 J/cm². As a result, the film obtained by magnetic-field-assisted laser annealing using a fluence of 0.9 J/cm² had the best overall photoelectric property with an average transmittance of 81.2%, a sheet resistance of 5.5 Ω/sq and a figure of merit of 2.27 × 10⁻² Ω⁻¹, outperforming that of the film obtained by pure laser annealing using the same fluence