• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.377-383
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• 2009

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were deposited on sapphire substrate by using radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and were performed in the temperature range of $600-900^{\circ}C$ by rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The crystallographic structure and the surface morphology were investigated by using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The crystallinity of the films was improved with increasing the annealing temperature and the average size of crystalline grains was found to be 50 nm. All the thin films showed an average transmittance of 92% in the wavelength range of 400-1100 nm. As the annealing temperature was increased, the bandgap energy was decreased and the violet photoluminescence (PL) signal at 400 nm replaced the ultraviolet PL signal. The electrical properties of the thin films showed a significant dependence on the annealing temperature.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.97-101
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• 2005

The ZnO:Al thin films were prepared on glass by Facing Target Sputtering (FTS) system. We investigated electrical, optical, and structural properties of AZO thin film with sputter ins current 0.1[A]-0.6[A]. We obtained the lowest resistivity $2.3{\times}\;10^{-4}[{\Omega}-cm]$ at sputtering current 0.6[A] from the 4-point probe and the strong (002) peak at sputtering current 0.3[A] from the X-ray Diffractometer (XRD). The optical transmittance of AZO thin films show a very high transmittance of $80\~95\%$ in the visible range and exhibit the absorpt ion edge of about 350 nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.168-168
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• 2012

Al doped ZnO (AZO)는 태양전지, 평판 디스플레이, OELD 등 광전자 소자에 적용되는 투명전도막용 재료인 ITO의 대체 재료로서 최근에 가장 각광받고 있는 물질이다. 하지만, $2.5{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$의 낮은 비저항과 90% 이상의 투과도를 갖는 ITO의 비해 AZO의 특성은 아직 부족한 상황이다. 수십 년간 많은 연구자들에 의해 다양한 제조 방법과 공정 조건들로 전기적, 광학적 특성을 향상시키기 위한 노력들이 진행되어 왔다. 하지만 실리콘 반도체와는 달리 II-VI족 물질의 정확한 근본적인 원리는 아직 불분명한 상태이다. 지금까지 AZO의 특성 향상의 원인을 결정립 크기, 주상구조의 우선 방위, 결정성, Zn-O 구조내의 산소 결핍 등의 메커니즘으로 설명해 왔다. 하지만, 본 연구에서는 지금까지 제안된 상기 요인의 변화 없이 전기적, 광학적 특성을 향상시키는 것이 짧은 열처리만으로도 가능했다. AZO 박막의 전기적, 광학적 특성에 큰 영향을 미치는 보다 근본적인 원인은 도핑 효율이다. ZnO 내에 도핑된 Al의 양보다 실제로로 활성화된 Al의 비율을 올리는 것이 중요하다. 본 연구에서 구조적, 조성적 변화 없이 도핑효율을 8.9%에서 66.7%까지 증가시켰으며, 이동도는 박막 표면의 및 결정립계 사이의 과잉산소를 줄임으로서 optical phonon scattering 감소를 통하여 증가시킬 수 있고, 이러한 과잉산소의 감소는 deep level emission을 감소시킴으로서 투과도 증가에도 영향을 준다. 본 연구에서 짧은 열처리를 통해 구조적 변화 없이 도핑효율의 증가만으로 $4.8{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$의 비저항과 90%의 투과도를 갖는 AZO 박막을 제조하였다.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.250-254
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• 2011

NiO-AZO films were deposited on glass substrate by DC and RF magnetron co-sputtering system in pure $O_2$ gas without substrate heating during deposition. In order to control the chemical composition of the film, NiO target was supplied with constant RF power of 150 W and AZO target (doped with 2.98 at% aluminum) with DC power varied between 40 W to 80 W. Deposited NiO-AZO films were evaluated by structural and chemical analysis. With introducing AZO, XRD and XPS data reveal that NiO were supplied with more oxygen. these results could be strongly affected by the higher bond enthalpy of NiO compared to ZnO, which makes it possible for NiO to obtain excessive oxygen from ZnO.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.135-139
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• 2017

We fabricated two different transparent conducting oxide thin films of ZnO doped with Ga ($Ga_2O_3$ 0.9 wt%) as well as Al ($Al_2O_3$ 2.1 wt%) (GAZO) and ZnO doped only with Al ($Al_2O_3$ 3 wt%) (AZO). It was investigated how it affects the moisture resistance of the transparent electrode. In addition, $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ thin film solar cells with two transparent oxides as front electrodes were fabricated, and the correlation between humidity resistance of transparent electrodes and device performance of solar cells was examined. When both transparent electrodes were exposed to high temperature distilled water, they showed a rapid increase in sheet resistance and a decrease in the fill factor of the solar cell. However, AZO showed a drastic decrease in efficiency at the beginning of exposure, while GAZO showed that the deterioration of efficiency occurred over a long period of time and that the long term moisture resistance of GAZO was better.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.191-196
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• 2010

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) films have been prepared on Coming 7059 glass substrates by r.f. magnetron sputtering method. A powder target instead of a conventional sintered ceramic target was used in order to improve the utilization efficiency of the target and reduce the cost of the film deposition process. The influence of sputter pressure on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of AZO films were studied. The AZO films had hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferred c-axis orientation, regardless of sputter pressure and target types. The crystallinity and degree of orientation was increased by increasing the sputter pressure. For higher sputtering pressures, a reduction of the resistivity was observed due to a increase on the mobility and the carrier concentration. The lowest resistivity of $6.5{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}-cm$ and the average transmittance of 80% can be obtained for films deposited at 15 mTorr.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.90-93
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• 2013

Al:ZnO thin films were deposited using the radio frequency magnetron sputtering technique at various temperatures and sputtering powers. With the increase in the deposition temperature and the decrease in the radio frequency sputtering power, the crystallinity was increased and the surface roughness was decreased, which lead to the decrease in the electrical resistivity of the film. It is also clearly observed that, the intensity of the (002) XRD peak increases with increasing the substrate temperature [1,2]. The electrical resistivity and optical transmittance of the Al:ZnO thin film were analyzed as a function of the post-annealing temperature. It can be seen that with the annealing temperature set at $400^{\circ}C$, the resistivity decreases to a minimum value of $4.1{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$ and the transmittance increases to a maximum value of 85% of the Al:ZnO thin film.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.41 no.10 s.269
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• pp.742-748
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• 2004

Isopropanol of low boiling point was used as a solvent to prepare Al-doped ZnO(AZO) thin films. A homogeneous and stable sol was made from Zn acetate a solute whose mole concentration was 0.7mol/$\iota$ and Al chloride as a dopant. Al-doped ZnO thin films were prepared by sol-gel method as a function of post-heating temperature from 500 to $700^{\circ}C$ and the optical and electrical properties were investigated. The c-axis orientation along (002) plane was enhanced with the increasing of post-heating temperature and the surface morphology of the films showed a homogeneous and nano-sized microstructure. The optical transmittance of the films post-heated below $650^{\circ}C$ was over $86\%$, but decreased at $700^{\circ}C$. The electrical resistivity of the thin films decreased from 73 to 22 $\Omega$-cm as the post-heating temperature increased up to $650^{\circ}C$, but increased greatly to 580 $\Omega$-cm at $700^{\circ}C$. XPS analysis indicated that the deterioration of electrical and optical properties was attributed to the precipitation of $Al_2O_3$ phase on the surface of AZO thin film. This result suggests that the optimum post-heating temperature to improve electrical and optical properties is $600^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.227-234
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• 1997

The stabilities of ITO, AZO, and SZO have been studied in hydrogen plasma. We used the ITO films produced from Corning LTD, and AZO, SZO films made by rf magnetron sputtering methods. These films were loaded in PECVD chamber and exposed to hydrogen plasma. For ITO, the optical transmittance was decreased as sample surface temperature and exposure time were increased during hydrogen plasma treatment. The transmittance of ITO dropped to 10~20% and its conductivity disappeared completely after exposing to hydrogen plasma for 30 minutes at $300^{\circ}C$. For AZO and SZO, there was no optical loss but the optical gap was widened due to the hydrogen incorporation into the film, indicating Burstein-Moss effect. Also the surface morphology of AZO and SZO was stable in hydrogen ambient but ITO showed rough surface due to the reduction of metal elements.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.142-150
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• 2012

In this Study, Mo back electrode were deposited as the functions of various working pressure, deposition time and plasma per-treatment on sodalime glass (SLG) for application to CIGS thin film solar cell using by DC sputtering method, and were analyzed Mo change to $MoSe_2$ layer through selenization processes. And finally Mo back electrode characteristics were evaluated as application to CIGS device after Al/AZO/ZnO/CdS/CIGS/Mo/SLG fabrication. Mo films fabricated as a function of the working pressure from 1.3 to 4.9mTorr are that physical thickness changed to increase from 1.24 to 1.27 ${\mu}m$ and electrical characteristics of sheet resistance changed to increase from 0.195 to 0.242 ${\Omega}/sq$ as according to the higher working pressure. We could find out that Mo film have more dense in lower working pressure because positive Ar ions have higher energy in lower pressure when ions impact to Mo target, and have dominated (100) columnar structure without working pressure. Also Mo films fabricated as a function of the deposition time are that physical thickness changed to increase from 0.15 to 1.24 ${\mu}m$ and electrical characteristics of sheet resistance changed to decrease from 2.75 to 0.195 ${\Omega}/sq$ as according to the increasing of deposition time. This is reasonable because more thick metal film have better electrical characteristics. We investigated Mo change to $MoSe_2$ layer through selenization processes after Se/Mo/SLG fabrication as a function of the selenization time from 5 to 40 minutes. $MoSe_2$ thickness were changed to increase as according to the increasing of selenization time. We could find out that we have to control $MoSe_2$ thickness to get ohmic contact characteristics as controlling of proper selenization time. And we fabricated and evaluated CIGS thin film solar cell device as Al/AZO/ZnO/CdS/CIGS/Mo/SLG structures depend on Mo thickness 1.2 ${\mu}m$ and 0.6 ${\mu}m$. The efficiency of CIGS device with 0.6 ${\mu}m$ Mo thickness is batter as 9.46% because Na ion of SLG can move to CIGS layer more faster through thin Mo layer. The adhesion characteristics of Mo back electrode on SLG were improved better as plasma pre-treatment on SLG substrate before Mo deposition. And we could expect better efficiency of CIGS thin film solar cell as controlling of Mo thickness and $MoSe_2$ thickness depend on Na effect and selenization time.