• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.209-209
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• 2012

High-efficient transparent conductive oxide (TCO) film-embedding Si heterojunction solar cells were fabricated. An additional doping was not applied for heterojunction solar cells due to the spontaneous junction formation between TCO films and an n-type Si substrate. Three different TCO coatings were formed by sputtering method for an Al-doped ZnO (AZO) film, an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) film and double stacks of ITO/AZO films. An improved crystalline ITO film was grown on an AZO template upon hetero-epitaxial growth. This double TCO films-embedding Si heterojunction solar cell provided significantly enhanced efficiency of 9.23% as compared to the single TCO/Si devices. The effective arrangement of TCO films (ITO/AZO) provides benefits of a lower front contact resistance and a smaller band offset to Si leading enhanced photovoltaic performances. This demonstrates a potential scheme of the effective TCO film-embedding heterojunction Si solar cells.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.105-110
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• 2013

We fabricated an a-IGZO thin film transistor (TFT) with AZO/Ag/AZO transparent multilayer source/drain contacts by rf magnetron sputtering. a-IGZO TFT with AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer S/D electrodes (W/L = 400/50 ${\mu}m$) showed a subs-threshold swing of 3.78 V/dec, a minimum off-current of $10^{-12}$ A, a threshold voltage of 0.41 V, a field effect mobility of $10.86cm^2/Vs$, and an on/off ratio of $9{\times}10^9$. From the ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy, it was revealed that the enhanced electrical performance resulted from the lowering of the Schottky barrier between a-IGZO and Ag due to the insertion of an AZO layer and thus the AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer would be very appropriate for a promising S/D contact material for the fabrication of high performance TFTs.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.577-582
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• 2013

AZO (aluminum-doped zinc oxide) is one of the best candidate materials to replace ITO (indium tin oxide) for TCOs (transparent conductive oxides) used in flat panel displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic solar cells (OSCs). In the present study, to apply an AZO thin film to the transparent electrode of an organic solar cell, a low-temperature selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) process was adopted to deposit an AZO thin film on a flexible poly-ethylene-naphthalate (PEN) substrate. The reactive gases for the ALD process were di-ethyl-zinc (DEZ) and tri-methyl-aluminum (TMA) as precursors and H2O as an oxidant. The structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of the AZO thin film were evaluated. From the measured results of the electrical and optical characteristics of the AZO thin films deposited on the PEN substrates by ALD, it was shown that the AZO thin film appeared to be comparable to a commercially used ITO thin film, which confirmed the feasibility of AZO as a TCO for flexible organic solar cells in the near future.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2012

Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin film was deposited by using Facing Target Sputtering (FTS) system. This work examined the properties of AZO thin film as a function of the substrate temperature. The sputtering targets were 4 inch diameter disks of AZO (ZnO : $Al_2O_3$ = 98 : 2 wt.% ). The properties of electrical, structural and optical were investigated by 4-point probe, Hall effect measurement, x-ray diffractometer (XRD), field-emitting scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and UV/VIS spectrometer. The lowest resistivity of films was $5.67{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}.cm$ and the average optical transmittance of the films was above 85% in the visible range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.165-165
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• 2010

AZO:H films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering system with a AZO (2wt% $Al_2O_3$) ceramic target at a temperature of $150^{\circ}C$. The annealing treatments were carried out in hydrogen ambient for 1hr at a temperature of $400^{\circ}C$. The AZO:H films were etched with 1 % HCl. The influence of the properties of AZO:H films deposited in various working pressures is investigated. As a result, the AZO:H film deposited in 4mTorr showed excellent electrical property of $\rho=5.036{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ and strongly oriented (002) peak. The transmittance in the wavelength of 450nm was above 80%. It can be used as front electrode for increasing efficiency of GaN LED.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.07b
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• pp.1474-1476
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• 2005

ZnO:Al(AZO) has been investigated for the photovoltaic cell or TCO(Transparent Conductive Oxide) of the display, because it has good electrical and optical properties. In this study, the ZnO:Al(AZO) thin film prepared on variation of substrate temperature by FTS(Facing Targets Sputtering) system. In case of TCO, because resistivity and roughness values affect the lighting of the OLED, their factors are very important. Therefore, in this paper, the electrical and optical properties of the AZO thin film were investigated with the deposition conditions and its roughness was investigated on variation of the substrate temperature. In results, AZO thin film deposited with the transmittance over 80% and the resistivity was reduced from $1.36{\times}10^{-3}$ [O-cm] to $4{\times}10^{-4}$ [O-cm] with increasing the substrate temperature from R.T to $200[^{\circ}C]$. Especially, we could obtain the resistivity $4{\times}10^{-4}$ [O-cm] of AZO thin film prepared at working pressure 1[mTorr], input current 0.4[A] and substrate temperature $200[^{\circ}C]$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-11
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• 2015

In this study, $Si_3N_4$/SnZnO/AZO/Ag/Ti/ITO multi-layer film were prepared on glass substrate by DC/RF magnetron sputtering method. To prevent interfacial reaction between Ag and ITO layer, Ti buffer layer was inserted. Optical properties and sheet resistance were studied depending on laminating times of each multi-layered film especially in visible ray. The simulation program, EMP (essential macleod program), was adopted and compared with experimental data to expect the experimental result. It was found out that the transmittance of the first stacked $Si_3N_4$/SnZnO/AZO/Ag/Ti/ITO multi-layer film was more than 90%. However, with increasing stacking times, the optical properties of $Si_3N_4$/SnZnO/AZO/Ag/Ti/ITO multi-layer film get worse. Consequently, Ti layer is good for oxidation barrier, but too many uses of this layer may have an adverse effect to optical properties of TCO film.

• Journal of Ceramic Processing Research
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• v.13 no.spc2
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• pp.407-410
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• 2012

The properties of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films were investigated as a function of H2/(Ar + H2) gas ratio using an AZO (2 wt% Al2O3) ceramic target in a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering system. The deposition process was done at 200 ℃ and in 2 × 10-2Torr working pressure and with various ratios of H2/(Ar + H2) gas. During the AZO film deposition process, partial H2 gas affected the AZO film characteristics. The electron resistivity (~ 9.21 × 10-4 Ωcm) was lowest and mobility (~17.8 ㎠/Vs) was highest in AZO films when the H2/(Ar + H2) gas ratio was 2.5%. When the H2/(Ar + H2) gas ratio was increased above 2.5%, the electron resistivity increased and mobility decreased with increasing H2/(Ar + H2) gas ratio in AZO films. The carrier concentration increased with increasing H2/(Ar + H2) gas ratio from 0% to 7.5%. This phenomenon was explained by reaction of hydrogen and oxygen and additional formation of oxygen vacancy. The average optical transmission in the visible light wavelength region over 90% and an orientation of the deposition was [002] orientation for AZO films grown with all H2/(Ar + H2) gas ratios.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.880-883
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• 2003

ZnO thin films for Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator(FBAR) were prepared by FTS (Facing Target Sputtering) system. The FTS methode enable to generate high density plasma, and it has a high deposition rate at 1mTorr pressure. Therefore, the ZnO thin films were deposited on $AZO/SiO_2/Si$ substrates with oxygen gas flow rate, and the other sputtering conditions were fixed such as a sputtering current of 0.8A, a substrate temperature at room temperature. AZO bottom electrode were deposited on $SiO_2/Si$ substrate and by Zn:Al(Al:2wt%) metal target. ZnO thin film thickness and the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO thin film were evaluated by ${\alpha}-step$ and XRD.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2009

We have investigated the effect of the ambient gases on the characteristics of AZO thin films for the OLED (organic light emitting diodes) devices. These AZO thin films are deposited by rf-magnetron sputtering under different ambient gases (Ar, Ar+$O_2$, and Ar+$H_2$) at 300. In order to investigate the influences of the oxygen and hydrogen, the flow rate of oxygen and hydrogen in argon mixing gas has been changed from 0.2sccm to 1sccm and from 0.5sccm to 5sccm, respectively. The AZO thin films were preferred oriented to (002) direction regardless of ambient gases. The electrical resistivity of AZO film increased with increasing flow rate of $O_2$ under Ar+$O_2$ while under Ar+$H_2$ atmosphere the electrical resistivity showed minimum value near 1sccm of $H_2$. All the films showed the average transmittance over 80% in the visible range. The OLED device was fabricated with different AZO substrates made by configuration of AZO/$\acute{a}$-NPD/DPVB/$Alq_3$/LiF/Al to elucidate the performance of AZO substrate.