• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.337-337
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• 2014

투명 전도성 산화물(transparent conductive oxide: TCO) 박막은 높은 투과율과 낮은 비저항 덕분에 LCD (liquid crystal display), PDP (plasma display panel), OLED (organic light emitting display) 등 평판 디스플레이에 널리 사용되고 있다. 현재 양산되고 있는 ITO (indium tin oxide)는 90% 이상의 높은 투과율과 우수한 전도성으로 인해 TCO 박막 가운데서 디스플레이 산업에서 가장 널리 쓰이고 있다. 그런데, ITO의 인듐산화물에 의한 간질성 폐렴(interstitial pneumonia)의 유발 위험이 있다든가, 인듐의 매장량이 적어 원자재 가격이 비싼 단점도 가지고 있다. 이에 최근 ITO를 대체할 수 있는 TCO물질로 많은 연구가 이루어지고 있는데, 특히 AZO (aluminum-doped zinc oxide)는 그 중 대표적인 대체물질로서 독성이 없고 가격도 저렴하여 많은 관심이 증폭되고 있다. 현재 AZO는 sol-gel 방법이나 CVD (chemical vapor deposition) 또는 스퍼터링 방법 등으로 증착되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 두 개의 이종타겟(hetero target)을 장착한 대향 타겟 스퍼터링(facing target sputtering: FTS) 장치를 사용하여 AZO 박막을 제작한다. 기존의 여러 증착법과 달리, FTS 장치는 두 타겟 사이에 형성되는 플라즈마 내의 ${\gamma}$-전자를 구속하게 되며, 낮은 가스 압력에서 고밀도 플라즈마가 생성되어 빠른 증착 속도와 안정적인 방전을 유지한 상태에서 박막을 증착할 수가 있다. 또한 기판과 플라즈마가 이격되어 있어 높은 에너지를 갖는 입자들의 기판 충돌을 억제할 수 있는 장점들을 갖는다. 이종 타겟인 ZnO와 Al2O3를 사용하고 각 타겟에 인가되는 파워 변화를 통해 AZO 박막 내 Al2O3의 성분비를 조절하였다. ZnO 타겟의 증착 파워를 100 W로 고정할 경우, Al2O3 타겟의 증착 파워가 (50~90) W으로 실험을 하였으며, Al2O3 타겟의 증착 파워가 70 W일 때 AZO 박막의 Al2O3 성분비는 2.02 wt.%이며 박막의 비저항 값은 $5{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$로 최소값을 보였다. 이러한 비저항의 변화는 파워에 따른 AZO 박막의 캐리어 이동도(Hall mobility)와 캐리어의 농도(Carrier Concentration)의 변화와 밀접한 관계가 있음을 보여주며, 특히 AZO 박막의 캐리어 농도와 캐리어 이동도는 AZO 박막을 형성하고 있는 결정립의 크기에 의존하는 것이 X-선 회절 패턴과 SEM으로부터 확인되었다. 특히, 본 연구에서는 두 개의 이종 타겟(hetero target) Al2O3와 ZnO를 장착하고 각각의 파워를 변화시켜 도핑 량을 조절할 수는 대향 타겟 스퍼터링(FTS: facing-target sputtering) 방법을 이용하여 제작된 AZO 박막에 대해 전기적, 광학적 및 구조적 특성을 분석하고 ITO의 대체물로서의 가능성을 검토하고자 한다.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.116-125
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• 2018

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is a commonly used material for the front contact layer of chalcopyrite $CuInGaSe_2$ (CIGS) based thin film solar cells since it satisfies the requisite optical and electrical properties with low cost and abundant elemental availability. Low-resistivity and high-transmission front contacts have been developed for high-performance CIGS solar cells, and nearly meet the required performance. However, the durability of the cell especially for the corrosion resistance of AZO films has not been studied intensively. In this work, AZO films were prepared on Corning glass 7059 substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering depending on the hydrogen content. The electrical and optical properties and electrochemical corrosion resistance of the AZO films were evaluated as a function of the hydrogen content. With increasing hydrogen content to 6 wt%, the crystallinity, crystal size, and surface roughness of the films increased, and the resistivity decreased with increased carrier concentration, Hall mobility, oxygen vacancies, and $Zn(OH)_2$ binding on the AZO surface. At a hydrogen content of 6 wt%, the corrosion resistance was also relatively high with less columnar morphology, shallow pore channels, and lower grain boundary angles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.421.1-421.1
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• 2016

We studied indium-doped zinc oxide (IZO) film grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) as transparent conductive oxide (TCO). A variety of TCO layer, such as ZnO:Al (AZO), InSnO2(ITO), Zn (O,S) etc, has been grown by various method, such as ALD, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), sputtering, laser ablation, sol-gel technique, etc. Among many deposition methods, ALD has various advantages such as uniformity of film thickness, film composition, conformality, and low temperature deposition, as compared with other techniques. In this study, we deposited indium-doped zinc oxide thin films using diethyl[bis(trimethylsilyl)amido]indium [Et2InN(TMS)2] as indium precursor, DEZn as zinc precursor and H2O as oxidant for ALD and investigated the optical and electrical properties of IZO films. As an alternative, this liquid In precursor would has several advantages in indium oxide thin-film processes by ALD, especially for low resistance indium oxide thin film and high deposition rate as compared to InCp, InCl3, TMIn precursors etc. We found out that Indium oxide films grown by Et2InN(TMS)2 and H2O precursor show ALD growth mode and ALD growth window. We also found out the different growth rate of Indium oxide as the substrate and investigated the effect of the substrate on Indium oxide growth.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.77-81
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• 2010

The AZO thin films were deposited on the corning 1737 glass plate by the RF magnetron sputtering and effects of working pressure and oxygen contents on the electrical properties were investigated. XRD spectra showed a preferred orientation along the c-axis and a minimum FWHM for the 70mTorr. From the surface analysis (AFM), the number of crystal grain of AZO thin film increased as working pressure increased. The film deposited with 70mTorr of working pressure showed n-type semiconductor characteristic having suitable resistivity $-1.59{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}cm$, carrier concentration $-10.1{\times}10^{19}cm^{-3}$, and mobility $-4.35cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$ while other films by 7 mTorr, 20 mTorr of working pressure closed to metallic films. The films including the oxygen represent stoichiometric composition similar to the oxide. The transmittance of the film was over 85% in the visible light range regardless of the changes in working pressure and oxygen contents.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2019

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were synthesized on Si(100) wafers via plasma enhanced metal organic chemical vapor deposition (PE-MOCVD) method using diethyl zinc (DEZ) and N-methylpyrrolidine alane (MPA) as precursors. Effects of Al/Zn mixing ratio, plasma power on the surface morphology, crystal structure, and electrical property were investigated with SEM, XRD and 4-point probe measurement respectively. Growth rate of the film decreased slightly with increasing the Al/Zn mixing ratio, however electrical property was enhanced and resistivity of the film decreased greatly about 2 orders from $9.5{\times}10^{-1}$ to $8.0{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$ when the Al/Zn mixing ratio varied from 0 to 9 mol%. XRD analysis showed that the grain size increased with increasing the Al/Zn mixing ratio. Growth rate and electrical property were enhanced in a mild plasma condition. Resistivity of AZO film decreased down to $7.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ at an indirect plasma of 100 W condition which was enough value to use for the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) material.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2021

We have investigated the effect of the substrate temperature and hydrogen flow rate on the characteristics of AZO thin films for the TCO (transparent conducting oxide). For this purpose, AZO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature and 300℃ with various H2 flow rate. Experiments were carried out while varying the hydrogen gas flow rate from 0sccm to 5.0sccm in order to see how the hydrogen gas affects the AZO thin films. AZO thin films deposited at 300℃ showed amorphous structure, whereas IZO thin films deposited at room temperature showed crystalline structure having an (222) preferential orientation. The electrical resistivity of the AZO films deposited at 300℃ was 4.388×10-3Ωcm, the lowest value. As the hydrogen gas flow rate increased, the resistivity tended to decrease.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.142-150
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• 2023

AZO/Cu/AZO thin films were deposited on glass by RF magnetron sputtering. The specimens showed the preferred orientation of (0002) AZO and (111) Cu. The Cu crystal sizes increased from about 3.7 nm to about 8.5 nm with increasing Cu thickness, and from about 6.3 nm to about 9.5 nm with increasing heat treatment temperatures. The sizes of AZO crystals were almost independent of the Cu thickness, and increased slightly with heat treatment temperature. The residual stress of AZO after heat treatment also increased compressively from -4.6 GPa to -5.6 GPa with increasing heat treatment temperature. The increase in crystal size resulted from grain growth, and the increase in stress resulted from the decrease in defects that accompanied grain growth, and the thermal stress during cooling from heat treatment temperature to room temperature. From the PL spectra, the decrease in defects during heat treatment resulted in the increased intensity. The electrical resistivities of the 4 nm Cu film were 5.9×10^-4 Ω·cm and about 1.0×10^-4 Ω·cm for thicker Cu films. The resistivity decreased as the temperature of heat treatment increased. As the Cu thickness increased, an increase in carrier concentration resulted, as the fraction of AZO/Cu/AZO metal film increased. And the increase in carrier concentration with increasing heat treatment temperature might result from the diffusion of Cu ions into AZO. Transmittance decreased with increasing Cu thicknesses, and reached a maximum near the 500 nm wavelength after being heat treated at 200 ℃.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.105-109
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• 2007

In this paper, we fabricated TCO (transparent conductive oxide) electrode on flexible substrate in order to study effects of electrical and optical properties according to Al-doped ZnO(AZO) film thickness. The thickness of film was from 100 nm to 500 nm and was controlled by changing deposition time. We used High Resolution X-ray Diffractometer (HR-XRD) to analyze crystal structure and UV-visible spectrophotometer to measure property of optical transmittance, respectively. The surface images are obtained by using ESEM (Environment Scanning Electron Microscopy). In this experiment, all the AZO films deposited on flexible substrate show high transmittance over 90% and especially in the films with 400 nm and 500 nm thickness, the resistivity ($4.5{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}-cm$) and optical bandgap energy (3.61 eV) are superior to the other films.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.323-324
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• 2007

Investigation of improving the properties of UV photodetector which uses the wide bandgap of ZnO are under active progress. In this paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films(AZO) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass(corning 1737) and p-Si substrate, were then annealed at temperature $400^{\circ}C$ for 2hr. The AZO thin films were deposited by RF sputtering system. HF power and work pressure is 120 W and 15 mTorr, respectively, and the purity of AZO target is 5N. The AZO thin films were deposited at 300, 400, $500^{\circ}C$, and $600^{\circ}C$. For sample deposited at $400^{\circ}C$, we observed best $V_r-I_{ph}$ of 0.94 mA and good transmittance.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.145-150
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• 2004

We have investigated the structural, electrical and optical properties of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films grown on glass substrate by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering as functions of pulse frequency and substrate temperature. A highly c-axis oriented AZO thin film is grown in perpendicular to the substrate when pulse frequency of 30 kHz and substrate temperature of $400^{\circ}C$ was applied. Under this optimized growth condition, the resistivity of AZO thin films exhibited $7.40\times 10^{-4}\Omega \textrm{cm}$. This indicated that the decrease of film resistivity resulted from the improvement of film crystallinity. The optical transmittance spectra of the films showed a very high transmittance of 85∼90 % in the visible wavelength region and exhibited the absorption edge of about 350 nm. The results show the potential application for transparent conductivity oxide (TCO) thin films.