• Proceedings of the Korean Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.68-71
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• 2006

Multi-component $ZnO-In_2O_3-SnO_2$ thin films have been prepared by RF magnetron co-sputtering using targets composed of $In_3Sn_4O_{12}$(99.99%) [1] and ZnO(99.99%) at room temperature. $In_3Sn_4O_{12}$ contains less In than commercial ITO, so that it lowers cost. Working pressure was held at 3 mtorr flowing Ar gas 20 sccm and sputtering time was 30 min. RF power ratio [RF1 / (RFI + RF2)] of two guns in sputtering system was varied from 0 to 1. Each RF power was varied $0{\sim}100W$ respectively. The thickness of the films was $350{\sim}650nm$. The composit ion concentrations of the each film were measured with EPMA, AES and XPS. The low resistivity of $1-2\;{\times}\;10^3$ and an average transmittance above 80% in the visible range were attained for the films over a range of ${\delta}\;(0.3\;{\leq}\;{\delta}\;{\leq}\;0.5)$. The films also showed a high chemical stability with time and a good uniformity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.168-168
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• 2010

Transparent conduction oxides (TCOs) films is extensively reported for optoelectronic devices application such as touch panels, solar cells, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and organic light emitting diodes(OLEDs). Among the many TCO film, indium tin oxide(ITO) is in great demand due to the growth of flat panel display industry. However, indium is not only high cost but also its deposits dwindling. Therefore, many studies are being done on the transparent conductive oxides(TCOs). We fabricated a target of IZTO(In2O3:ZnO:SnO2=70:15:15 wt.%) reduced indium. Then, IZTO thin films were deposited on glass substrates by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering with various oxygen flow ratio. The substrate temperature was fixed at the room temperature. We investigated the electrical, optical, structural properties of IZTO thin films. The electrical properties of IZTO thin films were dependent on the oxygen partial pressure. As a result, the most excellent properties of IZTO thin films were obtained at the 3% of oxygen flow rate with the low resistivity of $7.236{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$. And also the optical properties of IZTO thin films were shown the good transmittance over 80%. These IZTO thin films were used to fabricated organic light emitting diodes(OLEDs) as anode and the device performances studied. The OLED with an IZTO anode deposited at optimized deposition condition showed good brightness properties. Therefore, IZTO has utility value of TCO electrode although it reduced indium and we expect it is possible for the IZTO to apply to flexible display due to the low processing temperature.

• Solar Energy
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.55-65
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• 2000

Better electrical and optical properties of ITO thin films were demanded for the window layer of CdS/CdTe solar cells. To match that demand, an ion beam sputtering system was used for the deposition of ITO thin films. The substrate temperature and ion beam energy were controlled to deposit high quality ITO thin films in two cases of Ar ion sputtering and Ar+$O_2$ ion sputtering. The microstructure changed from domain structure in ITO deposited by Ar ions to grain structure in ITO deposited by Ar+$O_2$ ions. The lowest resistivity of ITO films was $1.5\times10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ at $100^{\circ}C$ substrate temperature in case of Ar ions sputtering. Transmittance in the visible range was over 80% above $100^{\circ}C$ substrate temperature.

• 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.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.53-58
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• 2017

In the age of oil exhaustion, low cost, semi-transparent solar cell, the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) has attracted significant attention since 1991 of $Gr{\ddot{a}}tzel$ report. To enhance the light-harvest capability of the photoelectric electrode, and efficiency of photoelectric transformation of the DSC, scattering layer of various structure have been proposed to photoelectric electrode materials. The scattering center of scattering layer needs the large titanium dioxide nanoparticles of 250 - 300 nm in diameter. In this study, the large sized $TiO_2$ nanocyrstals of around 300 nm were synthesized using the modified sol-gel process. According to the analysis of XRD and TEM, the synthesized $TiO_2$ nanoparticles exhibit single crystals of anatase phase. The optical transmittance of the synthesized titanium dioxide film prepared by spin coating is around 50% at 550 nm. It is suitable for scattering layer as a scattering center, and expected to enhance the efficiency of photoelectric transformation of the DSC.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.225-230
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• 2006

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a novel method of fabricating nanometer scale patterns. It is a simple process with low cost, high throughput and resolution. NIL creates patterns by mechanical deformation of an imprint resist and physical contact process. The imprint resist is typically a monomer or polymer formulation that is cured by heat or UV light during the imprinting process. Stiction between the resist and the stamp is resulted from this physical contact process. Stiction issue is more important in the stamps including narrow pattern size and wide area. Therefore, the antistiction layer coating is very effective to prevent this problem and ensure successful NIL. In this paper, an antistiction layer was deposited and characterized by PECVD (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) method for metal stamps. Deposition rates of an antistiction layer on Si and Ni substrates were in proportion to deposited time and 3.4 nm/min and 2.5 nm/min, respectively. A 50 nm thick antistiction layer showed 90% relative transmittance at 365 nm wavelength. Contact angle result showed good hydrophobicity over 105 degree. $CF_2$ and $CF_3$ peaks were founded in ATR-FTIR analysis. The thicknesses and the contact angle of a 50 nm thick antistiction film were slightly changed during chemical resistance test using acetone and sulfuric acid. To evaluate the deposited antistiction layer, a 50 nm thick film was coated on a stainless steel stamp made by wet etching process. A PMMA substrate was successfully imprinting without pattern degradations by the stainless steel stamp with an antistiction layer. The test result shows that antistiction layer coating is very effective for NIL.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.993-994
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• 2008

Electrochromic (EC) devices are capable of reversibly changing their optical properties upon charge injection and extraction induced by the external voltage. The characteristics of the EC device, such as low power consumption, high coloration efficiency, and memory effects under open circuit status, make them suitable for use in a variety of applications including smart windows and electronic papers. Coloration due to reduction or oxidation of redox chromophores can be used for EC devices (e-paper), but the switching time is slow (second level). Recently, with increasing demand for the low cost, lightweight flat panel display with paper-like readability (electronic paper), an EC display technology based on dye-modified $TiO_2$ nanoparticle electrode was developed. A well known organic dye molecule, viologen, was adsorbed on the surface of a mesoporous $TiO_2$ nanoparticle film to form the EC electrode. On the other hand, ZnO is a wide bandgap II-VI semiconductor which has been applied in many fields such as UV lasers, field effect transistors and transparent conductors. The bandgap of the bulk ZnO is about 3.37 eV, which is close to that of the $TiO_2$ (3.4 eV). As a traditional transparent conductor, ZnO has excellent electron transport properties, even in ZnO nanoparticle films. In the past few years, one-dimension (1D) nanostructures of ZnO have attracted extensive research interest. In particular, 1D ZnO nanowires renders much better electron transportation capability by providing a direct conduction path for electron transport and greatly reducing the number of grain boundaries. These unique advantages make ZnO nanowires a promising matrix electrode for EC dye molecule loading. ZnO nanowires grow vertically from the substrate and form a dense array (Fig. 1). The ZnO nanowires show regular hexagonal cross section and the average diameter of the ZnO nanowires is about 100 nm. The cross-section image of the ZnO nanowires array (Fig. 1) indicates that the length of the ZnO nanowires is about $6\;{\mu}m$. From one on/off cycle of the ZnO EC cell (Fig. 2). We can see that, the switching time of a ZnO nanowire electrode EC cell with an active area of $1\;{\times}\;1\;cm^2$ is 170 ms and 142 ms for coloration and bleaching, respectively. The coloration and bleaching time is faster compared to the $TiO_2$ mesoporous EC devices with both coloration and bleaching time of about 250 ms for a device with an active area of $2.5\;cm^2$. With further optimization, it is possible that the response time can reach ten(s) of millisecond, i.e. capable of displaying video. Fig. 3 shows a prototype with two different transmittance states. It can be seen that good contrast was obtained. The retention was at least a few hours for these prototypes. Being an oxide, ZnO is oxidation resistant, i.e. it is more durable for field emission cathode. ZnO nanotetropods were also applied to realize the first prototype triode field emission device, making use of scattered surface-conduction electrons for field emission (Fig. 4). The device has a high efficiency (field emitted electron to total electron ratio) of about 60%. With this high efficiency, we were able to fabricate some prototype displays (Fig. 5 showing some alphanumerical symbols). ZnO tetrapods have four legs, which guarantees that there is one leg always pointing upward, even using screen printing method to fabricate the cathode.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.155-160
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• 2013

ZnO thin films co-doped with Mg and Ga (MxGyZzO, x + y + z = 1, x = 0.05, y = 0.02 and z = 0.93) were prepared on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering with different sputtering powers ranging from 100W to 200W at a substrate temperature of $350^{\circ}C$. The effects of the sputtering power on the structural, morphological, electrical, and optical properties of MGZO thin films were investigated. The X-ray diffraction patterns showed that all the MGZO thin films were grown as a hexagonal wurtzite phase with the preferred orientation on the c-axis without secondary phases such as MgO, $Ga_2O_3$, or $ZnGa_2O_4$. The intensity of the diffraction peak from the (0002) plane of the MGZO thin films was enhanced as the sputtering power increased. The (0002) peak positions of the MGZO thin films was shifted toward, a high diffraction angle as the sputtering power increased. Cross-sectional field emission scanning electron microscopy images of the MGZO thin films showed that all of these films had a columnar structure and their thickness increased with an increase in the sputtering power. MGZO thin film deposited at the sputtering power of 200W showed the best electrical characteristics in terms of the carrier concentration ($4.71{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$), charge carrier mobility ($10.2cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$) and a minimum resistivity ($1.3{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$). A UV-visible spectroscopy assessment showed that the MGZO thin films had high transmittance of more than 80 % in the visible region and that the absorption edges of MGZO thin films were very sharp and shifted toward the higher wavelength side, from 270 nm to 340 nm, with an increase in the sputtering power. The band-gap energy of MGZO thin films was widened from 3.74 eV to 3.92 eV with the change in the sputtering power.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 2009

The precursor polyimide of the photoreactive polyimides(PI-SP6 and PI-SP12) was prepared from a derivative of 2, 2, 2-trifluoroethane dianhydride and 3,3'-dihydroxy-4,4'-diaminobiphenyl. PI-SP6 and PI-SP12 were then prepared by the polymer reactions of the precursor polyimide with photoreactive 2-styrylpyridine alkylene (hexylene and dodecylene) derivatives, respectively. The photoreactive polymers were soluble in organic solvents. The polymers showed the initial decomposition temperatures around $350^{\circ}C$. The glass transition temperatures of PI-SP6 and PI-SP12 were found to be $130^{\circ}C$ and $85^{\circ}C$, respectively. This result means that the latter polymer is more flexible than the former polymer. Their transmittance in the film state was 90% at $250^{\circ}C$, which indicates that the photosensitive polyimides with thermal stability have high optical transparency even at the high temperature. The respective dichroic ratios of PI-SP6 and PI-SP12 were found to be 0.01 and 0.03 at an exposure energy of $1.5\;J/cm^2$. This result suggests that the latter polymer with larger flexibility compared to the former polymer is more effective for the photoalignment.

• Solar Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 1997

Because grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon act as potential barriers and recombination centers for the photo-generated charge carriers, these defects degrade conversion effiency of solar cell. To reduce these effects of grain boundaries, we investigated various influencing factors such as thermal treatment, various grid pattern, selective wet etching for grain boundaries, buried contact metallization along grain boundaries, grid on metallic thin film. Pretreatment above $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ atmosphere, gettering by $POCl_3$ and Al treatment for back surface field contributed to obtain a high quality poly-Si. To prevent carrier losses at the grain boundaries, we carried out surface treatment using Schimmel etchant. This etchant delineated grain boundaries of $10{\mu}m$ depth as well as surface texturing effect. A metal AI diffusion into grain boundaries on rear side reduced back surface recombination effects at grain boundaries. A combination of fine grid with finger spacing of 0.4mm and buried electrode along grain boundaries improved short circuit current density of solar cell. A ultra-thin Chromium layer of 20nm with transmittance of 80% reduced series resistance. This paper focused on the grain boundary effect for terrestrial applications of solar cells with low cost, large area, and high efficiency.