• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.813-820
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• 2015

We have studied commercialization and process optimization of protective film on transparent conductive coated substrate, nano silver on flexible PET (poly ethylene terephthalate), by means of roll-to-roll micro-gravure coater. Nanosilver on flexible PET substrate is potential materials to replace ITO (indium tin oxide). Protective film is most important to maintain unique silver pattern on top of transparent PET. PSA pressure sensitive adhesives) was developed solely for nano silver on PET and protective film was successfully laminated. We have optimized all process conditions such as coating thickness, line speed and aging time & temperature via experimental design. Transparent conductive film and its protective film developed in this research are commercially available at this moment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.314-314
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• 2013

Recently, flexibility is one of the hottest issues in the field of electronic devices. For flexible displays or solar cells, a development of transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) with flexibility, bendability and foldability is an essential element. Hundreds of nanometers indium-tin-oxide (ITO) films have been widely used and commercialized as a transparent electrode, but their brittleness make them difficulty to apply flexible electronics. Many researchers have been studying for flexible TCEs such as a few layers of graphene sheets, carbon nanotube networks, conductive polymer films and combinations among them. Although gained flexibility, their transmittance and resistivity have not reached those of commercialized ITO films. Metal grids electrode cannot act as TCEs only, but they can be used to lower the resistance of TCEs with few losses of transmittance. However, the possibility of device shortage will be rise at the devices with metal grids because a surface flatness of TCEs may be deteriorated when metal grids are introduced using conventional methods. In our research, we have developed hybrid TCEs, which combined tens of nanometers ITO film and metal grids which are embedded in flexible substrate. They show $13{\Omega}$/${\Box}f$ sheet resistance with 94% of transmittance. Moreover, the sheet resistance was maintained up to 1 mm of bending radius. Also, we have verified that flexible organic light emitting diodes and organic solar cells with the TCEs showed similar performances compared to commercial ITO (on glass substrate) devices.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.973-974
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• 2004

We report the fabrication of flexible plastic ITO substrates and the measurement of oxidant permeation through the substrates. The plastic ITO substrates are composed of multiple organic and inorganic thin films. The organic thin films are deposited by vapor polymerization and the inorganic films are deposited by ion beam sputtering. In order to estimate the oxidant permeation rate, the pure Ca film is formed on the substrates and the amount of CaO produced by the oxidation of Ca is measured.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.687-694
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• 2006

We report on the fabrication of organic-based flexible displays using an amorphous IZO anode grown at room temperature. The IZO anode films were grown by a conventional DC reactive sputtering on the polycarbonate (PC) substrate at room temperature using a synthesized IZO target in a $Ar/O_2$ ambient. Both x-ray diffraction (XRD) and high resolution electron microscope (HREM) examination results show that the IZO anode film grown at room temperature Is complete amorphous structure due to low substrate temperature. A sheet resistance of $35.6\Omega/\Box$, average transmittance above 90 % in visible range, and root mean spare roughness of $6\sim10.5\AA$ were obtained even in the IZO anode film grown on PC substrate at room temperature. It is shown that the $Ir(ppy)_3$ doped flexible organic light emitting diode (OLED) fabricated on the IZO anode exhibit comparable current-voltage-luminance characteristics as well as external quantum efficiency and power efficiency to OLED fabricated on conventional ITO/Glass substrate. These findings indicate that the IZO anode film grown on PC substrate is a promising anode materials for the fabrication of organic based flexible displays.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.100-101
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• 2012

The plasma damage free and room temperature processedthin film deposition technology is essential for realization of various next generation organic microelectronic devices such as flexible AMOLED display, flexible OLED lighting, and organic photovoltaic cells because characteristics of fragile organic materials in the plasma process and low glass transition temperatures (Tg) of polymer substrate. In case of directly deposition of metal oxide thin films (including transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS)) on the organic layers, plasma damages against to the organic materials is fatal. This damage is believed to be originated mainly from high energy energetic particles during the sputtering process such as negative oxygen ions, reflected neutrals by reflection of plasma background gas at the target surface, sputtered atoms, bulk plasma ions, and secondary electrons. To solve this problem, we developed the NBAS (Neutral Beam Assisted Sputtering) process as a plasma damage free and room temperature processed sputtering technology. As a result, electro-optical properties of NBAS processed ITO thin film showed resistivity of $4.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}m$ and high transmittance (>90% at 550 nm) with nano- crystalline structure at room temperature process. Furthermore, in the experiment result of directly deposition of TCO top anode on the inverted structure OLED cell, it is verified that NBAS TCO deposition process does not damages to the underlying organic layers. In case of deposition of transparent conductive oxide (TCO) thin film on the plastic polymer substrate, the room temperature processed sputtering coating of high quality TCO thin film is required. During the sputtering process with higher density plasma, the energetic particles contribute self supplying of activation & crystallization energy without any additional heating and post-annealing and forminga high quality TCO thin film. However, negative oxygen ions which generated from sputteringtarget surface by electron attachment are accelerated to high energy by induced cathode self-bias. Thus the high energy negative oxygen ions can lead to critical physical bombardment damages to forming oxide thin film and this effect does not recover in room temperature process without post thermal annealing. To salve the inherent limitation of plasma sputtering, we have been developed the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) process as the high quality oxide thin film deposition process at room temperature. The MFSS process is effectively eliminate or suppress the negative oxygen ions bombardment damage by the plasma limiter which composed permanent magnet array. As a result, electro-optical properties of MFSS processed ITO thin film (resistivity $3.9{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, transmittance 95% at 550 nm) have approachedthose of a high temperature DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) ITO thin film were. Also, AOS (a-IGZO) TFTs fabricated by MFSS process without higher temperature post annealing showed very comparable electrical performance with those by DMS process with $400^{\circ}C$ post annealing. They are important to note that the bombardment of a negative oxygen ion which is accelerated by dc self-bias during rf sputtering could degrade the electrical performance of ITO electrodes and a-IGZO TFTs. Finally, we found that reduction of damage from the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment drives improvement of crystalline structure in the ITO thin film and suppression of the sub-gab states in a-IGZO semiconductor thin film. For realization of organic flexible electronic devices based on plastic substrates, gas barrier coatings are required to prevent the permeation of water and oxygen because organic materials are highly susceptible to water and oxygen. In particular, high efficiency flexible AMOLEDs needs an extremely low water vapor transition rate (WVTR) of $1{\times}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$. The key factor in high quality inorganic gas barrier formation for achieving the very low WVTR required (under ${\sim}10^{-6}gm^{-2}day^{-1}$) is the suppression of nano-sized defect sites and gas diffusion pathways among the grain boundaries. For formation of high quality single inorganic gas barrier layer, we developed high density nano-structured Al2O3 single gas barrier layer usinga NBAS process. The NBAS process can continuously change crystalline structures from an amorphous phase to a nano- crystalline phase with various grain sizes in a single inorganic thin film. As a result, the water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film have improved order of magnitude compared with that of conventional $Al_2O_3$ layers made by the RF magnetron sputteringprocess under the same sputtering conditions; the WVTR of the NBAS processed $Al_2O_3$ gas barrier film was about $5{\times}10^{-6}g/m^2/day$ by just single layer.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2022

In this study, we investigated the optical, electrical and exothermic characteristics of ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer structures prepared with various Ag thicknesses on quartz and PI substrates. The transparent conducting properties of the ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer films depended on the thickness of the mid-layer metal film. The ITO/Ag (14 nm)/ITO showed the highest Haccke's figure of merit (FOM) of approximately 19.3×10^-3 Ω^-1. In addition, the exothermic property depended on the substrate. For an applied voltage of 3.7 V, the ITO/Ag (14 nm)/ITO multilayers on quartz and PI substrates were heated up to 110℃ and 200℃, respectively. The bending tests demonstrated a comparable flexibility of the ITO/Ag/IT multilayer to other transparent electrodes, indicating the potential of ITO/Ag/ITO multilayer as a flexible transparent conducting heater.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.283-284
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• 2008

Electrical and optical characteristics of indium tin oxide (ITO) and indium zinc oxide (IZO) films without and with $(SiO_2)_3(ZnO)_7$ at.% (SZO) film deposited on poly(ethylene naphthalate) (PEN) and poly(ethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates as a gas barrier layer for flexible display were studied. The ITO and IZO films with SZO gas barrier layer showed the improved properties which were both the high transmittance of average 80% in the visible light range and the decreased sheet resistance as compared to those of ITO and IZO films without SZO layer. Particularly, the PEN substrate with only SZO gas barrier layer had a low water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of $\sim10^{-3}g/m^2$/day. Thus, we suggest that the SZO film with protection ability against the water vapor permeation can be applied to gas barrier layer for flexible display.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.10-10
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• 2009

We have fabricated transparent and flexible thin film transistor(TFT) on polyethylene terephthalate(PET) substrate using Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) film as active layer and electrode. The transfer printing method was used for printing the device layer on target plastic substrate at room temperature. This approach have an advantage to separate the high temperature annealing process to improve the electrical properties of ZnO TFT from the device process on plastic substrate. The resulting devices on plastic substrate presented mechanical and electrical properties similar with those on rigid substrate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.244.1-244.1
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• 2015

The Ag Nanowire is one of the materials that are widely studied as alternatives to ITO and is available for large area, low cost process and the flexible transparent electrode. However, Ag nanowire can have the problem of a lack of stability at high temperatures, making this impossible to form a film. Using a structure of ITO/AgNW/ITO in photodetector device, we improved the properties of the ITO in the IR region and improved the thermal stability of the AgNW. The structure of ITO/AgNW/ITO has a high transmittance value of 89% at a wavelength of 900 nm and provide a good electrical property. The AgNWs embedded ITO film has a high transmittance, this is because of the light scattering from the AgNW. The thermal stability of the developed ITO/AgNWs/ITO films were investigated and found AgNWs embedded ITO films posses considerable high stability compared to the solo AgNWs on the Si surface. The ITO/AgNWs/ITO device showed a improved photo-response ratio compared to those of the conventional TC device in IR region. This is attributed to the high transmittance and low sheet resistance. We suggest an effective design scheme for IR-sensitive photodetection by using an AgNW embedded ITO.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.299-299
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• 2013

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) has widely been used as a transparent conductive oxide (TCE) for photovoltaic devices. Lately, flexibility of ITO becomes an issue as demand of flexible device increases. Several scientists have tried to substitute ITO to different materials such as conductive polymer, graphene, CNT, and metal nanowire because of ITO brittleness. Among the substitute materials, PEDOT:PSS has mostly paid attention because PEDOT:PSS has excellent flexibility and good conductivity. The conductivity of PEDOT:PSS increases up to 1000 S/cm with additives such as DMSO, EG, sorbitol, and so on. In our research group, we introduce a conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS as a buffer layer to improve not only flexibility but also conductivity. As PEDOT:PSS layer forms beneath ITO thin film (20 nm), sheet resistance decreases from $230{\Omega}$/${\Box}$ to $85{\Omega}$/${\Box}$ and crack initiation decreases from 4.5 mm to 3.5 mm as well. We have fabricated organic photovoltaic device and power conversion efficiencies using conventional ITO electrode and ITO/PEDOT:PSS hybrid electrode. The photovoltaic property such as power conversion efficiency for ITO/PEDOT:PSS hybrid electrode is comparable to the value obtained using conventional ITO electrode on glass substrate.