• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.149-154
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• 1996

ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin films were prepared by sol-gel dip-coating method and electrical and optical properties of films were investigated. Using the zinc acetate dihydrate and acetylaceton(AcAc) as a chelating agent stable ZnO sol was synthesized with HCl catalyst. Adding aluminium chloride to the ZnO sol Al-doped ZnO sol could be also synthesized. As Al contents increase the crystallinity of ZnO thin film was retarded by increased compressive stress in the film resulted from the difference of ionic radius between Zn2+ and Al3+ The thickness of ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin film was in the range of 2100~2350$\AA$. The resistivity of ZnO thin films was measured by Van der Pauw method. ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin films with annealing temperature and Al content had the resistivity of 0.78~1.65$\Omega$cm and ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin film post-annealed at 40$0^{\circ}C$ in vacuum(5$\times$10-5 torr) showed the resistivity of 2.28$\times$10-2$\Omega$cm. And the trans-mittance of ZnO and Al-doped ZnO thin film is in the range of 91-97% in visible range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.164-167
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• 2006

In this paper, we prepared Al doped ZnO thin films by using facing targets sputtering method. Al doped ZnO thin film was deposited with different working pressure on flexible substrate. We prepared Al doped ZnO thin film at room temperature, because the flexible substrate has weak thermal resistance. From the results, we could obtain thin film with a resistivity of $8.4{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$, an average transmittance of over 80% and a film thickness of 200nm.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.338-342
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• 2016

ZnO thin film co-doped with F and Al was prepared on a glass substrate via simple non-alkoxide sol-gel spin coating. For a fixed F concentration, the addition of Al co-dopant was shown to reduce the resistivity mainly due to an increase in electrical carrier density compared with ZnO doped with F only, especially after the second post-heat-treatment in a reducing environment. There was no effective positive contribution to the reduction in resistivity due to the mobility enhancement by the addition of Al co-dopant. Optical transmittance of the ZnO thin film co-doped with F and Al in the visible light domain was shown to be higher than that of the ZnO thin film doped with F only.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.27-29
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• 2005

ZnO and phosphorus doped ZnO thin films (ZnO:P) are deposited by pulsed laser deposition grown on (001) $Al_{2}O_{3}$. ZnO/ZnO:P/ZnO/$Al_{2}O_{3}$ (multi-layer) structure was used for phosphorus doped ZnO fabrication. This multi-layer structure thin film was annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ for 40 min. The electron concentration of that was changed from $10^{19}$ to $10^{16}/cm^{-3}$ after annealing. ZnO thin films with encapsulated structure showed the enhanced structural and optical properties than phosphorus doped ZnO without encapsulated layer. In this study, encapsulated ZnO structure was suggested to enhance electrical, structural and optical properties of phosphorus doped ZnO thin film and it was identified that encapsulated structure could be used to fabricate high quality phosphorus doped ZnO thin film.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.351-355
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• 2010

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped ZnO thin films were deposited using a sol-gel process. In this study, the important deposition parameters were investigated thoroughly to determine the appropriate procedures to grow large area thin films with low resistivity and high transparency at low cost for device applications. The doping concentration of aluminum was adjusted in a range from 1 to 4 mol% by controlling the precursor concentration. The annealing temperatures for the pre-heat treatment and post-heat treatment was $250^{\circ}C$ and 400-$600^{\circ}C$, respectively. The SEM images show that Al doped and undoped ZnO films were quite uniform and compact. The XRD pattern shows that the Al doped ZnO film has poorer crystallinity than the undoped films. The crystal quality of Al doped ZnO films was improved with an increase of the annealing temperature to $600^{\circ}C$. Although the structure of the aluminum doped ZnO films did not have a preferred orientation along the (002) plane, these films had high transmittance (> 87%) in the visible region. The absorption edge was observed at approximately 370 nm, and the absorption wavelength showed a blue-shift with increasing doping concentration. The ZnO films annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ showed the lowest resistivity at 1 mol% Al doping.

• 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.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.67-72
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• 2008

Al-doped p-type ZnO thin films were fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering on n-Si (100) and homo-buffer layers in pure oxygen ambient. ZnO ceramic mixed with 2 wt% $Al_2O_3$ was selected as a sputtering target. XRD spectra show that the Al-doped ZnO thin films have ZnO crystal structure. Hall Effect experiments with Van der Pauw configuration show that p-type carrier concentrations are arranged from $1.66{\times}10^{16}$ to $4.04{\times}10^{18}\;cm^{-2}$, mobilities from 0.194 to $198\;cm^2V{-1}s^{-1}$ and resistivities from 0.0963 to $18.4\;{\Omega}cm$. FESEM cross section images of different parts of a p-type ZnO:Al thin film annealed at $800^{\circ}C$ show a compact structure. Measurement for same sample shows that density is $5.40\;cm^{-3}$ which is smaller than theoretically calculated value of $5.67\;cm^{-3}$. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra at 10 K show a shoulder peak of p-type ZnO film at about 3.117 eV which is ascribed to electron transition from donor level to acceptor level (DAP).

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.206-210
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• 2010

Al-doped ZnO thin films were deposited with various Ar flow rate by RF magnetron sputtering, and theire properties were studied. A high-quality thin film was obtained by controlling the Ar flow rate, and the influence of the Ar flow rate on the Al-doped ZnO thin film was confirmed. In all Al-doped ZnO thin films, light transmittance had above 80%. Through Hall measurement and X-ray photoelectron spectrometer, the sample of 60 sccm, which had the lowest resistivity, showed the lower Al concentration. This result was attributed to oxygen vacancy rather than Al concentration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.688-688
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• 2013

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films have attracted a lot of attention as a cheap transparent conducting oxide (TCO) material that can replace the expensive Sn-doped In2O3. In particular, AZO thin films are widely used as a window layer of chalcogenide-based thin film solar cells such as Cu(In,Ga)Se2 and Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS). Mostly important requirements for the window layer material of the thin film solar cells are the high transparency and the low sheet resistance, because they influence the light absorption by the activelayer and the electron collection from the active layer, respectively. In this study, we prepared the AZO thin films by RF magnetron sputtering using a ZnO/Al2O3 (98：2wt%) ceramic target, and the effect of the sputtering condition such as the working pressure, RF power, and the working distance on the optical, electrical, and crystallographic properties of the AZO thin films was investigated. The AZO thin films with optimized properties were used as a window layer of CZTS thin film solar cells. The CZTS active layers were prepared by the electrochemical deposition and the subsequent sulfurization process, which is also one of the cost-effective synthetic approaches. In addition, the solar cell properties of the CZTS thin film solar cells, such as the photocurrent density-voltage (J-V) characteristics and the external quantum efficiency (EQE) were investigated.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.263-269
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• 2012

Al doped ZnO(AZO) thin films were deposited at different substrate temperatures by a continuous composition spread(CCS) method. Various compositions of Al doped ZnO thin films deposited at substrate temperatures between 0 and $250^{\circ}C$ were explored to find excellent electrical and optical properties. The AZO thin film deposited at $100^{\circ}C$ had the lowest resistivity, $9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}$ cm and its average transmittance at the 400 to 700 nm wavelength region was 92 %. Optimized composition of the AZO thin film which had the lowest resistivity and high transmittance was 3.13 wt% Al doped ZnO.