• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.177-181
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• 2011

We have studied structural, optical, and electrical properties of the Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films being usable in transparent conducting oxides. The AZO thin films were deposited on the corning 1737 glass plate by the RF magnetron sputtering system. To find optimal properties of AZO for transparent conducting oxides, the RF power in sputtering process was varied as 40 W, 60 W, and 80 W, respectively. As RF power increased, the crystallinity of AZO thin film was decreased, the optical bandgap of AZO thin film increased. The transmittance of the film was over 80% in the visible light range regardless of the changes in RF power. The measurement of Hall effect characterizes the whole thin film as n-type, and the electrical property was improved with increasing RF power. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of the AZO thin films were affected by Al dopant content in AZO thin film.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2007

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were grown on glass substrates by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering. The effects of oxygen flow ratio, which was used for a sputtering gas, on the AZO thin films were investigated by using the X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Hall effects measurement. The AZO thin film, deposited with oxygen flow ratio of 0% at the growth temperature of $400^{\circ}C$, showed a strongly c-axis preferred orientation and the lowest resistivity of $6.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$. The ZnO (002) diffraction peak indicated a tendency to decrease substantially with increasing the oxygen flow ratio. Furthermore, as the oxygen flow ratio was decreased, the carrier concentration and the hall mobility were increased, but the electrical resistivity was decreased.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.35-39
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• 2007

ITO(Indium Tin Oxide) is the most attractive TCO(Transparent Conducting Oxide) materials for LCD, PDP, OLEDs and solar cell, because of their high optical transparency and electrical conductivity. However due to the shortage of indium resource, hard processing at low temperature, and decrease of optical property during hydrogen plasma treatment, their applications to the display industries are limited. Thus, recently the Al-doped ZnO(AZO) has been studied to substitute ITO. In this study, we have investigated the effect of different substrate temperature(RT, $150^{\circ}C$, $225^{\circ}C$, $300^{\circ}C$) and working pressure(10 mTorr, 20 mTorr, 30 mTorr, 80 mTorr) on the characteristics of AZO(2 wt.% Al, 98 wt.% ZnO) films deposited by RF-magnetron sputtering. We have obtained AZO thin films deposited at low temperature and all the deposited AZO thin films are grown as colunmar. The average transmittance in the visible wavelength region is over 80% for all the films and transmittance improved with increasing substrate temperature. Electrical properties of the AZO films improved with increasing substrate temperature.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.97-102
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• 2013

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were prepared by dc magnetron sputtering at room temperature and the effect of heat treatment on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the films were examined. As the annealing temperature and time increased, the resistivity decreased and the transmittance improved. All AZO films had c-axis oriented (002) plane of ZnO, regardless of the annealing process employed. As the annealing temperature and time increased, the crystallinity of AZO thin films increased due to the formation of a new ZnO phase in which Al was substituted for Zn. However, at the high annealing temperature of $400^{\circ}C$, the resistivity of the films increased via separation of Zn and Al from ZnO phase due to their low melting points. X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron micrograph and Hall effect measurement confirmed the formation of uniformly distributed new grains of ZnO substituted with Al. The variation of Al contents in AZO films was shown to be the primary factor for the changes in resistivity and carrier concentration of the films.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.161-165
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• 2017

In this paper, synthesis of terephthalate intercalated Zn-Al: Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) was studied. We designed freestanding Zn-Al: carbonate LDH nanosheets for a facile exchange technique. The as-prepared Zn-Al carbonate LDHs were converted to terephthalate intercalated Zn-Al:LDHs by ion exchange method. Initially, Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were deposited on p-Si (001) by facing target sputtering. For synthesis of free standing carbonate Zn-Al:LDH, we dipped the AZO thin film in naturally carbonated water for 3 hours. Further, Zn-Al: carbonate LDH nanosheets were immersed in terepthalic acid (TA) solution. The ion exchange phenomena in the terephthalate assisted Zn-Al:LDH were confirmed using FT-IR analysis. The crystal structure of terephthalate intercalated Zn-Al:LDH was investigated by XRD pattern analysis with different mole concentrations of TA solution and reaction times. The optimal conditions for intercalation of terephthalate from carbonated Zn-Al LDH were established using 0.3 M aqueous solution of TA for 24 hours.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.283.2-283.2
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• 2016

최근 ZnO는 무독성, 저가격, 수소 플라즈마에 대한 내구성 및 열적 안정성 등의 활발히 연구되고 있으며, III족 원소(Al, Ga, In) 불순물을 도핑하여 전기적 성질의 열적 불안정성을 해결하고 전기적 성질을 향상 시키고 또한 밴드갭 에너지가 3.3 eV 이상으로 증가하여 가시광선 영역에서 광투과율이 높은 투명도 전성 재료를 제공할 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 RF Magnetron Sputtering을 이용하여 내열성과 광학적 측면에서 우수한 성능을 가지는 PES 기판에 표면 에너지를 높이고 치밀한 구조의 박막을 증착하기 위해서 $O_2$ 플라즈마 처리를 하여 ZnO계 투명 전도막을 제작함으로써 투명전극에서 요구하는 $10^{-3}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ 이하의 낮은 비저항과 80% 이상의 광투과율을 가지는 방안에 대하여 연구하였다. PES 기판 위에 고밀도 $O_2$ 플라즈마를 이용하여 전 처리를 실시한 후 4인치의 Al-doped ZnO(ZnO 98 wt% : $Al_2O_3$ 2 wt%), AZO의 타겟을 이용하여 상온에서 RF Magnetron Sputtering 법으로 AZO 박막을 증착하였다. PES 기판상의 AZO 박막 두께가(100~400nm) 증가함에 따라 캐리어 농도와 홀 이동도가 점차 증가하는 경향을 보였다. 이는 박막 두께가 증가할수록 면저항과 비저항은 감소하며 결정립 크기가 커지고 결정입계에서 산란이 줄어들기 때문에 전기적 특성이 개선된 것으로 판단된다. 고밀도 $O_2$ 플라즈마 표면처리 시간이 증가함에 따라 플라스틱 기판의 결합에너지와 부착력이 증가하여 AZO 박막의 결정립 크기를 증가시키며, 접촉각은 감소하였다. 또한 급속열처리 온도가 증가함에 따라 전기적 특성과 광학적 특성이 향상됨을 확인할 수 있었다. 제작된 AZO 박막은 급속열처리 시간 10분에서 온도 $200^{\circ}C$일 때, 캐리어 농도 $2.32{\times}10^{21}cm^{-3}$, 홀 이동도 $4.3cm^{-2}/V$로 가장 높은 것을 확인할 수 있었고, 가장 낮은 비저항 $1.07{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$과 가시광 영역(300 nm ~ 1100 nm)에서의 AZO 박막의 광 투과율은 약 86%를 얻을 수 있었다.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.979-982
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• 2004

The ZnO thin films were prepared by the FTS (facing target sputtering) system, which enables to provide high density plasma and a high deposition rate at a low working gas pressure. We introduced the AZO thin film in order to improve the crystallographic properties of ZnO thin film because of the AZO(ZnO:Al) thin film has an equal crystal structure to the ZnO thin film. ZnO/AZO thin films were deposited at a different oxygen gas flow ratio, R.T. 2mTorr working pressure and a 0.8A sputtering current. The film thickness and c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO/AZO/glass thin films were measured by ${\alpha}$-step and an x-ray diffraction (XRD) instrument. In the results, we could prepare the ZnO thin film with c-axis preferred orientation of about 6$^{\circ}$ on substrate temperature R.T. at O$_2$ gas flo rate 0.5.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.291-294
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• 2015

Recently, ZnO based oxide TFTs used in the flexible and transparent display devices are widely studied. To apply to OLED display switching devices, electrical performance and stability are important issues. In this study, to improve these electrical properties, we fabricated TFTs having Al doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) layer inserted between the gate insulator and ZnO layer. The AZO and ZnO layers are deposited by Atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. I-V transfer characteristics and stability of the suggested devices are investigated under the positive gate bias condition while the channel defects are also analyzed by the photoluminescence spectrum. The TFTs with AZO layer show lower threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) and superior sub-threshold slop. In the case of $V_{th}$ shift after positive gate bias stress, the stability is also better than that of ZnO channel TFTs. This improvement is thought to be caused by the reduced defect density in AZO/ZnO stack devices, which can be confirmed by the photoluminescence spectrum analysis results where the defect related deep level emission of AZO is lower than that of ZnO layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.385-386
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• 2007

We prepared the Al doped ZnO coating Ag multilayer thin films on glass without substrate heating using FTS system. The structure of multilayer thin films has Al doped ZnO/Ag/Al doped ZnO(AZO/Ag/AZO). The thickness of top and bottom AZO thin films were fixed to 50 nm, respectively and controlled the thickness of Ag thin films with deposition time. As-doped multilayer thin films were prepared at 1mTorr and input power (DC) of 100W at room temperature. To investigate the film properties, we employed four-point probe, UVNIS spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Hall Effect measurement system and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM).

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.257-261
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• 2013

We have studied structural, optical, and electrical properties of the Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films using RF magnetron sputtering with various working pressure. To find optimal properties of AZO for transparent conducting oxides, the working pressure in sputtering process was varied as 0.07 Torr, 0.02 Torr, and 0.007 Torr, respectively. As working pressure increased, the crystallinity of AZO thin film was improved, the surface roughness of AZO thin film decreased. The transmittance of the film was over 80% in the visible light range regardless of the changes in working pressure. In case of 0.007 Torr, best electrical properties was shown due to the reduction of oxygen absorption by decreasing surface roughness.