• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.249-249
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• 2011

투명전도성산화물(transparent conducting oxides, TCOs) 박막은 전기 전도성과 광투과성이 우수하여 유기발광다이오드(organic light-emitting diode, OLED), 태양전지(solar cell), 발광다이오드(LED) 등의 광전자 소자에 널리 응용되고 있다. 특히 LED에서 p-GaN층에서 전류가 층안에서 충분하게 확산되지 않기 때문에, TCO는 균일하게 전류를 흘려보내기 위해서 전류확산층(current spreading layer)으로 사용된다. 그 중 널리 쓰이는 산화인듐주석(indium tin oxide, ITO)은 고가의 indium가격과 인체에 유해한 독성 등이 문제점으로 지적되고 있다. 따라서 indium의 함량을 저감하거나 함유하지 않은 새로운 조성의 친환경적 대체 TCO 개발에 대한 연구가 많이 진행되고 있다. 이러한 반도체 재료 중 하나인 AZO (Al-doped zinc oxide, Al2O3 : 2wt.%)는 3.3 eV의 넓은 에너지 밴드갭을 가지며, 가시광선 및 근적외선 파장영역에서 높은 투과율을 나타낸다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 GaN기반 LED 응용을 위한 전류확산층으로 ITO 대신 AZO의 특성을 연구하였다. 박막 증착율이 높고, 제작과정의 조정이 용이한 RF magnetron 스퍼터를 이용하여 glass기판 위에 AZO, Ni/AZO, NiOx/AZO를 증착하였다. 이어서 $N_2$ 분위기에서 다양한 온도 조건에서 열처리(rapid thermal annealing, RTA)하여 전기적 광학적 특성에 대하여 비교 분석하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.101-101
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• 2011

투명전도성산화물(transparent conducting oxides, TCOs) 박막으로써 널리 쓰이는 산화인듐주석(indium tin oxide, ITO)은 전기 전도성과 광 투과성이 우수하여 주로 유기발광다이오드(organic light-emitting diode, OLED)의 전극, 발광다이오드(light-emitting diode, LED)의 current spreading 층 및 태양전지(solar cell)의 윈도우층(window layer) 등의 광전자 소자로 응용되고 있으나, 고가의 indium 가격과 인체에 유해한 독성 등이 문제점으로 지적되고 있다. 따라서 indium의 함량을 저감한 새로운 조성의 TCO 또는 indium을 함유하지 않은 친환경적인 TCO 대체 재료 개발의 필요성이 증대되고 있다. 이러한 재료 중 하나인 AZO (Al-doped zinc oxide, $Al_2O_3$: 2 wt.%)는 3.82eV의 넓은 에너지 밴드갭을 가지며, 가시광선 및 근 적외선 파장 영역에 대하여 90% 이상의 높은 투과율을 나타낸다. 또한, 습식식각이 가능하며, 매우 풍부하여 원가가 매우 저렴하고, 독성이 없다. 본 연구에서는 박막 증착율이 높고, 제작과정의 조정이 용이한 RF magnetron 스퍼터를 이용하여 glass 기판 위에 AZO 박막을 성장하고, $N_2$ 분위기에서 다양한 온도 조건에서 열처리(rapid thermal annealing, RTA)하여 전기 및 광학적 특성에 대하여 비교 분석하였다. 또한, 이후에 기존의 성장방법과 달리 고가의 진공 장비를 사용하지 않고, 저온에서도 간단한 구조의 장비를 이용하여 균일한 나노구조를 성장시킬 수 있는 전기화학증착법(electrochemical deposition)으로 AZO 박막위에 ZnO 나노로드를 다양한 성장조건에 따라 성장시켜 광학적 특성을 비교 분석하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.40-40
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• 2010

Structural, electrical, and optical properties of atomic layer-controlled AI-doped ZnO (ZnO:Al) films grown on glass by atomic layer deposition (ALD) were characterized with various $Al_2O_3$ film contents for use as transparent electrodes. Unlike films made using sputtering methods, the diffraction peak position of the films grown by ALD based on alternate self-limiting surface chemical reactions moved progressively to a wider angle (red shift) with increasing $Al_2O_3$ film content, which seems to be evidence of Zn substitution in the film by layer-by-layer growth. By adjusting the $Al_2O_3$ film content, the electrical resistivity of ZnO:Al film with the $Al_2O_3$ film content of 2.96% reached the lowest electrical resistivity of $9.80{\times}10^{-4}\Omega{\cdot}cm$, in which the carrier mobility, carrier concentration, and optical transmittance were $11.20\;cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$, $5.69{\times}10^{20}\;cm^{-3}$, and 94.23%, respectively. Moreover, the estimated figure of merit value for the transparent conductive oxide applications from our best sample was $7.7\;m{\Omega}^{-1}$.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.6-13
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• 2006

Tin doped indium oxide(ITO) and Al doped zinc oxide(ZnO:Al) films, which are widely used as a transparent conductor in optoelectronic devices, were prepared by using the capacitively coupled DC magnetron sputtering method. ITO and ZnO:Al films with the optimum growth conditions showed each resistivity of $1.67{\times}10^{-3}[{\Omega}-cm],\;2.2{\times}10^{-3}[{\Omega}-cm]$ and transmittance of 89.61[%], 90.88[%] in the wavelength range of the visible spectrum. The two types of 5 inch-PDP cells with ZnO:Al and ITO transparent electrodes were made under the same manufacturing conditions. The PDP cell with ZnO:Al film was optimally operated in the mixing gas rate of Ne(base)-Xe(8[%]), and at gas pressure of 400[Torr]. It also shows the average measured brightness of $836[cd/m^2]$ at voltage range of $200{\sim}300$[V]. Luminous efficiency, one of the key parameter for high brightness and low power consumption, ranges from 1.2 to 1.6[lm/W] with increasing frequency of ac power supplier from 10 to 50[Khz]. The brightness and luminous efficiency are lower than those with ITO electrode by about 10[%]. However, these values are considered to be enough for the normal operation of PDP TV.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.587-591
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• 1998

AZO transparent conducting thin film were fabricated by DC magnetron sputtering using the Zn: Al (2% aluminu contained ) alloy target with inducing microwave to the plasma, and the effect of microwave was studied. The optical transmittance, the resistivity and dynamic deposition rate at the applied voltage to target of 420 V was 50~70%, $ 5.5{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}$cm and 6,000 $\AA\textrm{mm}^2$/J, respectively. After annealing AZO coated glass at $400^{\circ}C$ for 30 minutes, the light transmittance was increased to 80% and electrical conductivity was also increased two times, reached to resistivity of $2.0{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}$cm.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07c
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• pp.1482-1484
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• 2002

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCI (0.5%) to examine the electrical and surface morphology properties as a variation of the time. The most important deposition condition of surface-textured ZnO films by chemical etching is the processing pressure and the substrate temperature. In low pressures (0.9mTorr) and high substrate temperatures $({\leq}300^{\circ}C)$, the surface morphology of films exhibits a more dense and compact film structure with effective light-trapping to apply the silicon thin film solar cells.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.115-120
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• 2009

The 3wt.% Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were fabricated on Coming 1737 substrates at a fixed oxygen pressure of 200 mTorr with various substrate temperatures ($100\;{\sim}\;250^{\circ}C$) by using pulsed laser deposition in order to investigate the microstructure, optical, and electrical properties of AZO thin films. All thin films were shown to be c-axis oriented, exhibiting only a (002) diffraction peak. The AZO thin film, fabricated at 200 mTorr and $250^{\circ}C$, showed the highest (002) orientation and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the (002) diffraction peak was $0.44^{\circ}$. The optical transmittance in the visible region was higher than 85 %. The Burstein-Moss effect, which shifts to a high photon energy, was observed. The electrical property indicated that the highest carrier concentration ($3.48{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$) and the lowest resistivity ($1.65{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}cm$) were obtained in the AZO thin film fabricated at 200 mTorr and $250^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.315-315
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• 2016

The hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film solar cells using n/Al or n/Ag/Al back reflector have low short circuit current (Jsc) due to high absorption coefficients of Al or work function difference between n-layer and the metal. In this article, we utilized aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) to raise the internal reflectance for the improvement of short current density (Jsc) in a-Si:H thin film solar cells. It was found that there was a slight increase in the reflectance in the long wavelength range at the process temperature of 125oC due to improved crystalline quality of the AZO back reflector. The optical band gap (Eg) and work function were affected by the temperature and so did the internal reflectance. The increased internal reflectance within the solar cell resulted in Jsc of 14.94 mA/cm2 and the efficiency of 8.84%. Jsc for the cell without back reflector was 12.29 mA/cm2.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1205-1211
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• 2013

The structural and optical properties of the ZnO, Al-doped ZnO, Ga-doped ZnO, and In-doped ZnO nanorods were investigated using field-emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence (PL) and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. All the nanorods grew with good alignment on the ZnO seed layers and the ZnO nanorod dimensions could be controlled by the addition of the various dopants. For instance, the diameter of the nanorods decreased with increasing atomic number of the dopants. The ratio between the near-band-edge emission (NBE) and the deep-level emission (DLE) intensities ($I_{NBE}/I_{DLE}$) obtained by PL gradually decreased because the DLE intensity from the nanorods gradually increased with increase in the atomic number of the dopants. We found that the dopants affected the structural and optical properties of the ZnO nanorods including their dimensions, lattice constants, residual stresses, bond lengths, PL properties, transmittance values, optical band gaps, and Urbach energies.

• 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.