• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.328-333
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• 2011

The influence of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films degraded under high temperature and damp heat on the performance deterioration of Cu(In,Ga)$Se_2$ (CIGS) solar cells was investigated. CIGS solar cells with AZO/CdS/CIGS/Mo structure were prepared on glass substrate and exposed to high temperature ($85^{\circ}C$) and damp heat ($85^{\circ}C$/85% RH) for 1000 h. As-prepared CIGS solar cells had 64.91% in fill factor (FF) and 12.04% in conversion efficiency. After exposed to high temperature, CIGS solar cell had 59.14% in FF and 9.78% in efficiency, while after exposed to damp heat, it had 54.00% in FF and 8.78% in efficiency. AZO thin films in the deteriorated CIGS solar cells showed increases in resistivity up to 3.1 times and 4.4 times compared to their initial resistivity after 1000 h of high temperature and damp heat exposure, respectively. These results can be explained by the decreases in carrier concentration and mobility due to diffusion or adsorption of oxygen and moisture in AZO thin films. It can be inferred that decreases in FF and conversion efficiency were caused by an increase in series resistance, which resulted from an increase in resistivity of AZO thin films degraded under high temperature and damp heat.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.338.2-338.2
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• 2016

Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were deposited on Si substrates with rod-shaped-surface by pulsed laser deposition method (PLD). Si-rods were prepared through chemical etching. To analyze the influence on the formation of the rod structure, samples with various chemical etching conditions such as AgNO3/HF ratio, etching time, and solution temperature were prepared. The morphology of Si-rod structures were examined by FE-SEM. Fig. 1 shows a typical structure of n-AZO/p-Si-rod juncions. The fabricated n-AZO/p-Si-rod devices exhibited p-n diode current-voltage characteristics. We compared the I-V characteristics of n-AZO/p-Si-rod devices with the samples without Si-rod structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.403-404
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• 2007

We prepared the Al doped ZnO (AZO) thin film on polyethersulfon (PES) without any substrate heating by Facing Targets Sputtering (FTS) system. ZnO doped the content of Al 2 wt% was used and the sputtering conditions were gas pressure 1mTorr and input power 100W. The electrical, structural and optical properties of AZO thin films were investigated. To investigate the as-deposited thin film properties, we employed four-point probe, UV/VIS spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Hall Effect measurement system and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.107-107
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• 2011

오늘 날 transparent conductive oxide는 다양한 분야에서 활용되고 있다. 최근에는 태양전지 분야에서도 많이 활용되고 있으며, 초기에는 transmittance 및 낮은 sheet resistance 특성을 가지는 ITO가 많이 활용되었지만 thin film solar cell와 같이 hydrogenation 공정에 약한 ITO보다는 Al-doped ZnO가 사용되기 시작하면서 많은 연구가 진행되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 thin film solar cell 및 silicon heterojunction solar cell에 적용 가능한 Al-doped ZnO에 관한 연구로써 a-Si:H의 Si-H bonds에 영향을 주지 않는 낮은 영역의 substrate temperature와 power로 Al-doped ZnO를 형성하고 상기 parameter에 따른 Al-doped ZnO의 특성 변화에 대해서 분석하였다. 특히 substrate temperature가 변화할수록 carrier concentration 및 sheet resistance가 많은 변화를 보였으며 이로 인하여 transmittance 특성이 온도에 따라 좋아지다가 너무 높은 온도에서는 오히려 좋지 않게 되었다. 이는 너무 높은 carrier concentration은 free carrier absorption에 의해 transmittance 특성을 오히려 좋지 않게 한다. 우리는 본 연구를 통해 92.677% (450 nm), 90.309% (545 nm), 94.333% (800 nm)의 transmittance를 얻을 수 있었다.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.81-84
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• 2010

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films were prepared by an Ar:$H_2$ gas radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering system with a AZO ($2\;wt{\cdot}%\;Al_2O_3$) ceramic target at the low temperature of $100^{\circ}C$ and annealed in hydrogen ambient at the temperature of $300^{\circ}C$. To investigate the influence of the $H_2$ flow ratio on the properties of the AZO films, the $H_2$ flow ratio was changed from 0.5% to 2%. As a result, the AZO films, deposited with a 1% $H_2$ addition, showed a resistivity of $11.7\;{\times}\;10^{-4}\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. When the AZO films were annealed at $300^{\circ}C$ for 1 hour in a hydrogen atmosphere, the resistivity decreased from $11.7\;{\times}\;10^{-4}\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ to $5.63\;{\times}\;10^{-4}\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. The lowest resistivity of $5.63\;{\times}\;10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ was obtained by adding 1% hydrogen gas to the deposition and annealing process. The X-ray diffraction patterns of all the films showed a preferable growth orientation in the (002) plane. The spectrophotometer measurements showed that the transmittance of 85% was obtained by the film deposited with the $H_2$ flow ratio of 1% at 940 nm for GaAs/GaAlAs LEDs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.27-27
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• 2008

The different concentration Indium doped ZnO:Al films were grown on glass substrates (Corning 1737) at $200^{\circ}C$ by pulsed laser deposition. The indium doping in AZO films shows the critical effect on the crystallinity, resistivity, and optical properties of the films. The AZO films doped with 0.3 atom % indium content exhibit the highest crystallinity, the lowest resistivity of $4.5\times10^{-4}\Omega$-cm, and the maximum transmittance of 93%. The resistivity of the indium doped-AZO films is strongly related with the crystallinity of the films. The carrier concentration in the indium doped-AZO films linearly increases with increasing indium concentration. The mobility of the AZO films with increasing indium concentration was reduced with an increase in carrier concentration and the decrease in mobility was attributed to the ionized impurity scattering mechanism. In an optical transmittance, the shift of the optical absorption edge to shorter wavelength strongly depends on the electronic carrier concentration in the films.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.189-194
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• 1999

The heat treatment effects of the undoped ZnO and Al doped ZnO(AZO) transparent conductive films prepared by rf magnetron sputtering were investigated. The variations of the electrical and optical properties with heat treatment temperature and ambient were studied. The resistivity of the un doped ZnO films heat treated in air and $H_z$ plasma for 1 hour increased rapidly above $200^{\circ}C$ and $300^{\circ}C$, respectively. And that of the ZnO:Al films heat treated in air also increased rapidly above $300^{\circ}C$. On the other hand that of the ZnO:Al films heat treated in $H_z$ plasma was constant regardless of heat treatment temperature. The optical transmittance above 550nm is about 90% for all thin films regardless of impurity doping, the heat treatment temperature and ambient.

• 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.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.150-155
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• 2021

Zinc oxide (ZnO) based transparent conducting oxides (TCO) thin films, are used in many applications such as solar cells, flat panel displays, and LEDs due to their wide bandgap nature and excellent electrical properties. In the present work, fluorine and aluminium-doped ZnO targets are prepared and thin films are deposited on soda-lime glass substrate using a RF magnetron sputtering unit. The aluminium concentration is fixed at 2 wt%, and the fluorine concentration is adjusted between 0 to 2.0 wt% with five different concentrations, namely, Al2ZnO98(AZO), F0.5AZO97.5(FAZO1), F1AZO97(FAZO2), F1.5AZO96.5(FAZO3), and F2AZO96(FAZO4). Thin films are deposited with an RF power of 40 W and working pressure of 5 m Torr at 270 ℃. The morphological analysis performed for the thin film reveals that surface roughness decreases in FAZO1 and FAZO2 samples when doped with a small amount of fluorine. Further, optical and electrical properties measured for FAZO1 sample show average optical transmissions of over 89 % in the visible region and 82.5 % in the infrared region, followed by low resistivity and sheet resistance of 3.59 × 10-4 Ωcm and 5.52 Ω/sq, respectively. In future, these thin films with excellent optoelectronic properties can be used for thin-film solar cell and other optoelectronics applications.