Acronyms in materials science: TCO, AZO, GZO, IZO, MZO for thin film oxides

TCO stands for transparent conductive oxide. TCO is used as thin film or coating material in electro-optical devices including solar cells. TCOs are oxides of one or more metals that are typically doped with an additional metal. The examples, following TCO in the title, all refer to doped zinc oxide (ZnO) materials. The first letter encodes the dopand metal and ZO is short for ZnO. The oxides are:

• AZO: Al-doped ZnO (aluminium-doped zinc oxide)
• GZO: Ga-doped ZnO (gallium-doped zinc oxide)
• IZO: In-doped ZnO (indium-doped zinc oxide)
• MZO: Mg-doped ZnO (magnesium-doped zinc oxide)

Comment: Unfortunately, MZO is also used as acronym for metal-doped ZnO, bringing ambiguity to the three-letter acronyms. What about using AlZO, GaZO, InZO, MgZO and MeZO instead? This schema further allow us to distinguish between Ag-doped ZnO and Al-doped ZnO, i.e. between AgZO and AlZO.

Keywords: chemistry, device design, surface coating, light transmittance

Selected literature
[1] S. H. Jeong, B. N. Park, S.-B. Lee and J.-H. Boo: Metal-doped ZnO thin films: Synthesis and characterizations. Surface & Coatings Technology 2007, 201, pp. 5318-5322. PDF.
[2] H.-K. Park; J.-W. Kang; S.-I. Na, D.-Y. Kim and H.-K. Kim: Characteristics of indium-free GZO/Ag/GZO and AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer electrode grown by dual target DC sputtering at room temperature for low-cost organic photovoltaics. Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 2009, 93, pp. 1994-2002.
DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2009.07.016.
[3] K. Ramamoorthy, K. Kumar, R. Chandramohan, K. Sankaranarayanan, R. Saravanan, I. V. Kityk and P. Ramasamy: High optical quality IZO (In2Zn2O5) thin films by PLD - A novel development for III-V opto-electronic devices. Optics Communications 2006, 262 (1), pp. 91-96.
DOI: 10.1016/j.optcom.2005.12.042.
[4] D. R. Sahu and J.-L. Huang: Development of ZnO-based transparent conductive coatings. Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 2009, 93, pp. 1923-1927.
DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2009.07.004.
[5] J. Springer, A Poruba, M. Vanecek, S. Fay, L. Feitknecht, N. Wyrsch, J. Meier, A. Shah, T. Repmann, O. Kluth, H. Stiebig and B. Rech: Improved Optical Model for Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells. Presented at 17-th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Munich 2001. PDF.