• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.335-335
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• 2014

Over the past several years, transparent conducting oxides have been extensively studied in order to replace indium tin oxide (ITO). Here we report on fluorine doped zinc tin oxide (FZTO) films deposited on glass substrates by radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering using a 30 wt% ZnO with 70 wt% SnO2 ceramic targets. The F-doping was carried out by introducing a mixed gas of pure Ar, CF4, and O2 forming gas into the sputtering chamber while sputtering ZTO target. Annealing temperature affects the structural, electrical and optical properties of FZTO thin films. All the as-deposited FZTO films grown at room temperature are found to be amorphous because of the immiscibility of SnO2 and ZnO. Even after the as-deposited FZTO films were annealed from $300{\sim}500^{\circ}C$, there were no significant changes. However, when the sample is annealed temperature up to $600^{\circ}C$, two distinct diffraction peaks appear in XRD spectra at $2{\Theta}=34.0^{\circ}$ and $52.02^{\circ}$, respectively, which correspond to the (101) and (211) planes of rutile phase SnO2. FZTO thin film annealed at $600^{\circ}C$ resulted in decrease of resistivity $5.47{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$, carrier concentration ~1019 cm-3, mobility~20 cm2 V-1s-1 and increase of optical band gap from 3.41 to 3.60 eV with increasing the annealing temperatures and well explained by Burstein-Moss effect. Change of work function with the annealing temperature was obtained by ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy. The increase of annealing temperature leads to increase of work function from ${\phi}=3.80eV$ (as-deposited FZTO) to ${\phi}=4.10eV$ ($600^{\circ}C$ annealed FZTO) which are quite smaller than 4.62 eV for Al-ZnO and 4.74 eV for SnO2. Through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, incorporation of F atoms was found at around the binding energy of 684.28 eV in the as-deposited and annealed FZTO up to 400oC, but can't be observed in the annealed FZTO at 500oC. This result indicates that F atoms in FZTO films are loosely bound or probably located in the interstitial sites instead of substitutional sites and thus easily diffused into the vacuum from the films by thermal annealing. The optical transmittance of FZTO films was higher than 80% in all specimens and 2-3% higher than ZTO films. FZTO is a possible potential transparent conducting oxide (TCO) alternative for application in optoelectronics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.493-498
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• 2005

Al doped Zinc Oxide, which is widely used as a transparent conductor in opto-electronic devices. In this paper, we find that the lateral variations of the parameters of the ZnO:Al films prepared by the rf magnetron sputtering can be reduced to acceptable levels by optimising the deposition parameters. The effect of bias voltage on the electrical, optical and morphological properties were investigated experimentally. we investigated sample properties of Bias Voltage change in 0 to 50 V.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.08a
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• pp.181-185
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• 2007

We report on our material and process research on ZnO:Al films and on our investigations on wet chemical etching using a variety of etching solutions. We achieve resistivity as low as $750{\mu}{\Omega}cm$ for ZnO:Al films with film thickness of 140 nm. Etching with phosphorous acid allows for accurate fine patterning of the ZnO:Al films on glass substrates.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.629-633
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• 2007

This study examined the effect of growth temperature on the electrical and optical properties of hydrogenated Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO:H) thin films deposited by rf magnetron sputtering using a ceramic target (98 wt.% ZnO, 2 wt.% $Al_2O_3$). Various AZO films on glass were prepared by changing the substrate temperature from room temperature to $200^{\circ}C$. It was shown that intentionally incorporated hydrogen plays an important role on the electrical properties of AZO : H films by increasing free carrier concentration. As a result, in the 2% $H_2$ addition at the growth temperature of $150^{\circ}C$, resistivity of $3.21{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, mobility of $21.9cm^2/V-s$, electric charge carrier concentration of $9.35{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$ was obtained. The AZO : H films show a hexagonal wurtzite structure preferentially oriented in the (002) crystallographic direction.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.799-808
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• 1995

Transparent conductive films of aluminium doped zinc oxide (AZO) have been prepared by using the DC magnetron sputtering with the ZnO : Al (Al2O3 2 wt%) oxide target oriented to c-axis. Electrical and optical properties depended upon the O2/Ar gas ratio. The optical transmittance and sheet resistance of the AZO coated glass was 60~65% and 75Ω/$\square$, respectively at the O2/Ar gas ratio of 0. With the increase of the oxygen partial pressure to 2.0$\times$10-2, they were increased to the values of 81% and 1kΩ/$\square$, respectively. The films with the resistivities of 1.2~1.4$\times$10-3 Ω.cm, mobilities of 11~13 $\textrm{cm}^2$/V.sec and carrier concentrations of 3.5$\times$1020~4.0$\times$1020/㎤ were produced at the optimum O2/Ar gas ratio, which was 0.5$\times$10-2~1.0$\times$10-2. According to XRD analysis, the films have only one peak corresponding to the (002) plane, which indicates that there is a strong preferred orientation of the films. The grain size of ZnO films were calculated to 200~320 $\AA$, which was increased with the O2/Ar gas ratio and Ar gas flowrate.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.55.1-55.1
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• 2010

Cost efficient and large area deposition of superior quality $Al_2O_3$ doped zinc oxide (AZO) films is instrumental in many of its applications including solar cell fabrication due to its numerous advantages over ITO films. In this study, AZO films were prepared by a highly efficient rotating cylindrical dc magnetron sputtering system using AZO target, which has a target material utilization above 80%, on glass substrates in argon ambient. A detailed analysis on the electrical, optical and structural characteristics of AZO thin films was carried out for solar cell application. The properties of films were found to critically depend on deposition parameters such as sputtering power, substrate temperature, working pressure, and thickness of the films. A low resistivity of ${\sim}5.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}-cm$ was obtained for films deposited at 2kW, keeping the pressure and substrate temperature constant at 3 mtorr and $230^{\circ}C$ respectively, mainly due to an increase in carrier mobility and large grain size which would reduce the grain boundary scattering. The increase in carrier mobility with power can be attributed to the columnar growth of AZO film with (002) preferred orientation as revealed by XRD analysis. The AZO films showed a high transparency of>87% in the visible wavelength region irrespective of deposition conditions. Our results offers a cost-efficient AZO film deposition method which can fabricate films with significant low resistivity and high transmittance that can find application in thin-film solar cells.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.112-115
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• 2010

Transparent conducting undoped and Al impurity doped ZnO films were deposited on glass substrate by spin coat technique using 24 days aged ZnO precursor solution with solution of ethanol and diethanolamine. The films were characterized by UV-Visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), electrical resistivity ($\rho$), carrier concentration (n), and hall mobility ($\mu$) measurements. XRD data show that the deposited film shows polycrystalline nature with hexagonal wurtzite structure with preferential orientation along (002) crystal plane. The SEM images show that surface morphology, porosity and grain sizes are affected by doping concentration. The Al doped samples show high transmittance and better resistivity. With increasing Al concentration only mild change in optical band gap is observed. Optical properties are not affected by aging of parent solution. A lowest resistivity ($8.5 \times 10^{-2}$ ohm cm) is observed at 2 atomic percent (at.%) Al. With further increase in Al concentration, the resistivity started to increase significantly. The decrease resistivity with increasing Al concentration can be attributed to increase in both carrier concentration and hall mobility.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.847-854
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• 2012

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were grown on quartz substrates by the sol-gel method. The effects of the Al mole fraction on the structural and optical properties of the AZO thin films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and UV-VIS spectroscopy. The particle size of the AZO thin films decreased with an increase in Al concentrations. The optical parameters, the optical band gap, absorption coefficient, refractive index, dispersion parameter, and optical conductivity, were studied in order to investigate the effects of Al concentration on the optical properties of AZO thin films. The dispersion energy, single-oscillator energy, average oscillator wavelength, average oscillator strength, and refractive index at an infinite wavelength of the AZO thin films were affected by the Al incorporation. The optical conductivity of the AZO thin films also increased with increasing photon energy.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.291-294
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• 2015

Recently, ZnO based oxide TFTs used in the flexible and transparent display devices are widely studied. To apply to OLED display switching devices, electrical performance and stability are important issues. In this study, to improve these electrical properties, we fabricated TFTs having Al doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) layer inserted between the gate insulator and ZnO layer. The AZO and ZnO layers are deposited by Atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. I-V transfer characteristics and stability of the suggested devices are investigated under the positive gate bias condition while the channel defects are also analyzed by the photoluminescence spectrum. The TFTs with AZO layer show lower threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) and superior sub-threshold slop. In the case of $V_{th}$ shift after positive gate bias stress, the stability is also better than that of ZnO channel TFTs. This improvement is thought to be caused by the reduced defect density in AZO/ZnO stack devices, which can be confirmed by the photoluminescence spectrum analysis results where the defect related deep level emission of AZO is lower than that of ZnO layer.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2008.07a
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• pp.1352-1353
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• 2008

In this study, aluminium - doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) transparent conducting film was deposited on PET(polyethylen terephthalate) substrate by r.f. magnetron sputtering method. PET substrate was surface-treated in an atmospheric pressure DBD(dielectric barrier discharge) plasma to increase deposition rate and to improve electrical propesties. Morphological changes by DBD plasma were obsered using contact angle measurement. The contact angle of water on PET was reduced from 62$^{\circ}$ to 42$^{\circ}$ by DBD plasma surface treatment. The plasma treatment also increased deposition rate and electrical propesties. The electrical resistivity as low as $4.97{\times}10^{-3}[{\Omega}-cm]$ and the deposition rate of 234[${\AA}$-m/min] were obtained in ZnO:Al film with surface treatment time of 5min, and 20min., respectively.