• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.194-197
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• 2013

We investigated the effect of etching time on the surface roughness, and electrical and optical properties of ZnO and 2 wt% Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films. The ZnO and AZO films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technique. The etching experiment was carried out using a solution of 5% HCl at room temperature. The surface roughness was characterized by Atomic Force Microscopy. The electrical property was measured by Hall measurement system and 4-point probe. The optical property was characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy. After the wet chemical etching, the surface textures were obtained on the surface of the ZnO and AZO films. With the increase of etching time, the surface roughness (RMS) of the films increased and the transmittance of the films was observed to decrease. For the AZO film, a low resistivity of $1.0{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ was achieved even after the etching.

• 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 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.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.50-55
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• 2008

AI-doped ZnO(AZO) thin films have been fabricated on glass substrate by sol-gel method, and the effect of Al precursors and post-annealing temperature on the characteristics of AZO thin films was investigated. The sol was prepared with zinc acetate, EtOH, MEA and Al precursors. In order to dope Al in ZnO, two types of aluminum nitrate and aluminum chloride were used as Al precursor. Zinc concentration was 0.5 mol/l and the content of Al precursor was 1 at% of Zn in the sol. The sol was spin-coated on glass substrate, and the coated films were annealed at 550ue for 2 hand were post-annealed at temperature ranges of $300{\sim}500^{\circ}C$ for 2 h in reducing atmosphere ($N_2/H_2$= 9/1). Structural, electrical and optical propertis of the fabricated AZO thin films were analyzed by XRD, FE-SEM, AFM, hall effect measurement system and UV-visible spectroscopy. Optical and electrical properties of AZO thin films prepared with aluminum nitrate as Al precursor were better than those of films prepared with aluminum chloride. The electrical resistivity and the optical transmittance of films decreased with increasing post-annealing temperatures. The minimum electrical resistivity of $2{\times}10^{-3}$ and the maximum optical transmittance of 91% were obtained for the AZO thin films post-annealed at $550^{\circ}C\;and\;300^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• 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 institute of surface engineering
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.98-104
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• 2006

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films were deposited on the plastic substrate by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted DC magnetron sputtering. The AZO films were produced by sputtering a metallic target (Zn/Al) in a mixture of argon and oxygen gases. AZO films with an electrical resistivity of ${\sim}10^3\;{\Omega}cm$ and an optical transmittance of 80% were obtained even at a low deposition temperature. In-situ process control methods were used to obtain stable deposition conditions in the transition region without any hysteresis effect. The target voltage was controlled either at a constant DC power. It was found that the ratio of the zinc to oxygen emission intensity, I (O 777)/I (Zn 481) decreased with increasing the target voltage in the transition region. The $Ar/O_2$ plasma treatment improve the adhesion strength between the polycarbonate substrate and AZO films.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

AZO thin films have been fabricated on quartz substrate with various Al doping concentrations and annealing temperatures by sol-gel method. The bset condition of (002) orientation and smooth surface (rms = 1.082 nm) is obtained for the AZO thin film doped with 1 mol % Al and annealed at 550 $^{\circ}C$. The optical transmittance of AZO thin films is higher than 80 % in the visible region. We observe that the energy band gap extends with increasing the Al doping concentration. This phenomenon is due to the Burstein-Moss effect. Through the measurement of Hall effect, it is observed that the AZO thin film has larger carrier concentration and smaller electrical resistivity than the pure ZnO thin film. However, the AZO thin film shows the decrease of carrier concentration and the increase of resistivity with the increase of Al concentration, that is due to the segregation of Al at grain boundaries. The maximum carrier concentration of $1.80{\times}10^{19}\;cm^{-3}$ and the minimum resistivity of 0.84 ${\Omega}cm$ are obtained for the AZO thin film doped with 1 mol % Al and annealed at 550 $^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.592-598
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• 1998

AZO(Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide) thin films were fabricated by reactive DC magnetron sputtering method using zinc metal target (Al 2%) and zinc oxide target ($Al_2O_3\;2%$) respectively. The intermediate condition with optimum transmittance and conductivity was obtained by controlling the sputtering parameters. Oxygen gas ratio for this condition was $0.5{\times}10^{-2}~1.0{\times}10^{-2}$ in oxide target and. In case of metal target, this optimum oxygen gas ratio at the applied power of 0.6 kW and 1.0 kW was 0.215~0.227 and 0.305~0.315, respectively. The resistivity of AZO film deposited was obtained $1.2~1.4{\times}10^{-3} {\Omega}{\cdot}$cm as deposited state regardless of target species.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.82-83
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• 2008

AI doped ZnO (AZO) films, and intentionally Zn added AZO (ZAZO) films were prepared on Corning glass by rf magnetron sputtering, and the electrical, optical, and structural properties of the as-deposited films together with the air annealed films were investigated. The resistivity of the AZO films increased with increasing substrate temperature and having minimum resistivity at $150^{\circ}C$. At the high temperature, the ZAZO films showed improved electrical properties better than the AZO films due.to increase in both the carrier concentration and.the Hall mobility. Upon air annealing at $500^{\circ}C$, the resistivity of both AZO and ZAZO films increased substantially, but the relative amount of degradation was smaller for films deposited at $450^{\circ}C$ than the films deposited at $150^{\circ}C$.