• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.577-582
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• 2013

AZO (aluminum-doped zinc oxide) is one of the best candidate materials to replace ITO (indium tin oxide) for TCOs (transparent conductive oxides) used in flat panel displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic solar cells (OSCs). In the present study, to apply an AZO thin film to the transparent electrode of an organic solar cell, a low-temperature selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) process was adopted to deposit an AZO thin film on a flexible poly-ethylene-naphthalate (PEN) substrate. The reactive gases for the ALD process were di-ethyl-zinc (DEZ) and tri-methyl-aluminum (TMA) as precursors and H2O as an oxidant. The structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of the AZO thin film were evaluated. From the measured results of the electrical and optical characteristics of the AZO thin films deposited on the PEN substrates by ALD, it was shown that the AZO thin film appeared to be comparable to a commercially used ITO thin film, which confirmed the feasibility of AZO as a TCO for flexible organic solar cells in the near future.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.94-101
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• 2023

Zinc oxide(ZnO) is a semiconductor material with a bandgap of 3.37 eV and an exciton binding energy of 60 meV for various applications. Recently ZnO has been proven to enhance its electrical properties for utilization as an alternative for transparent conducting oxide (TCO) materials. In this study, cation(Al, Ga)-anion(F) single and double doped ZnO thin films were grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) to enhance the electrical properties. The structural and optical properties of doped ZnO thin films were analyzed, and doping effects were confirmed to electrical characteristics. In single doped ZnO, it was observed that the carrier concentration was increased after doping, acting as a donor to ZnO. Among the single doping elements, F doped ZnO(FZO) showed the highest mobility and conductivity due to the passivation effect of oxygen vacancies. In the case of double doping, higher electrical characteristics were observed compared to single doping. Among the samples, Al-F doped ZnO(AFZO) exhibited the lowest resistance value. This results can be attributed to an increase in delocalized electron states and a decrease in lattice distortion resulting from the differences in ionic radius. The partial density of states(PDOS) was also analyzed and observed to be consistent with the experimental results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.367-367
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• 2013

Commercial applications of indium tin oxide (ITO) can be separated into two useful areas. As it is perceived to bear electrical properties and optical transparency at once, its chance to apply to promising fields, usually for an optical device, gets greater in the passing time. ITO is one of the transparent conducting oxides (TCO), and required to carry the relative resistance less than $10^{-3}{\Omega}$/cm and transmittances over 80 % in the visible wavelength of light. Because ITO has considerable refractive index, there exist applications for anti-reflection coatings. Anti-reflection properties require gradual change in refractive index from films to air. Such changes are obtained from film density or nano-clustered fractional void. Glancing angle deposition (GLAD) method is a well known process for adjusting nanostructure of the films. From its shadowing effects, GLAD helps to deposit well-controlled porous films effectively. In this study, we are comparing the reference sample to samples coated with controlled ITO multilayer accumulated by an e-beam evaporation system. At first, the single ITO layer samples are prepared to decide refractive index with ellipsometry. Afterwards, ITO multilayer samples are fabricated and fitted by multilayer ellipsometric model based on single layer data. The structural properties were measured by using atomic force microscopy (AFM), and by scanning X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. The ellipsometry was used to determine refractive indices and extinction coefficient. The optical transmittance of the film was investigated by using an ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.297-297
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• 2010

Transparent conductive Oxide (TCO) is an essential material in the various optoelectronic applications as a transparent electrode, such as solar cells, flat panel displays and organic light emitting diodes. Currently, Indium tin oxide (ITO) is commonly used in industry due to its low electrical resistivity, high transmittance and high adhesion to substrate. However, ITO is expensive and should be prepared at high temperature, which makes it hard to use ITO in flexible devices. In this regard, Ga-doped ZnO is expected as an ideal candidate for replacing ITO.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.803-807
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• 2008

A making process of DSC(dye sensitized solar cell) was presented. In general, Photo electrodes of DSC was made by using colloid paste of nano $TiO_2$ and processing of Doctor-blade printing and high temperature sintering for porous structure. These methods lead to cracks on $TiO_2$ surface and ununiform of $TiO_2$ thickness. This phenomenon is one factor that makes low efficiency to cells. After $TiO_2$ printing on TCO glass, a physical vibration was adapted for reducing ununiform of $TiO_2$ thickness. And a thermal treatment at low temperature(under $75^{\circ}C$) was adapted for reducing cracks on $TiO_2$ surface. In this paper, we have designed and manufactured an ultrasonic circuit (100W, frequency and duty variable) and a thermal equipment. Then, we have optimized forcing time, frequency and duty of ultrasonic irradiation and thermal heating for surface treatment of photo-electrode of DSC. In I-V characteristic test of DSC, ultrasonic and thermal treated DSC shows 19% improved its efficiency against monolithic DSC. And it shows stability of light-harvesting from drastically change of light irradiation test.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-11
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• 2015

In this study, $Si_3N_4$/SnZnO/AZO/Ag/Ti/ITO multi-layer film were prepared on glass substrate by DC/RF magnetron sputtering method. To prevent interfacial reaction between Ag and ITO layer, Ti buffer layer was inserted. Optical properties and sheet resistance were studied depending on laminating times of each multi-layered film especially in visible ray. The simulation program, EMP (essential macleod program), was adopted and compared with experimental data to expect the experimental result. It was found out that the transmittance of the first stacked $Si_3N_4$/SnZnO/AZO/Ag/Ti/ITO multi-layer film was more than 90%. However, with increasing stacking times, the optical properties of $Si_3N_4$/SnZnO/AZO/Ag/Ti/ITO multi-layer film get worse. Consequently, Ti layer is good for oxidation barrier, but too many uses of this layer may have an adverse effect to optical properties of TCO film.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.245-249
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• 2007

Amorphous IZO films were deposited on PET substrate by DC magnetron sputtering without substrate heating. In order to investigate effect of reactive gas addition on film properties, 0.2-0.4% of $H_2$ or $O_2$ gas was introduced during the deposition. Deposited IZO films were evaluated with mechanical property, electrical property, and water permeability. In the case of $H_2$ gas addition, mechanical property showed clear degradation compared to $O_2$ gas. In the case of $O_2$ gas, water permeability of the IZO film was increased compared to $H_2$ gas which could be attributed to the low adhesion of the film caused by bombardment of high energy negative oxygen ion. As a result, it is confirmed that water permeability of the film could be strongly affected by adhesion of the film.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.10
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• pp.1976-1981
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• 2009

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were deposited on Coming glass substrate using an Gun-type rf magnetron sputtering deposition technology. The AZO thin films were fabricated with an AZO ceramic target (Zn: 98wt.%, $Al_2O_3$: 2wt.%). The AZO thin films were deposited with various growth conditions such as the substrate temperature, oxygen pressure. X -ray diffraction (XRD), UV/visible spectroscope, atomic force microscope (AFM), and Hall effect measurement system were done in order to investigate the properties of the AZO thin films Among the AZO thin films prepared in this study, the one formed at conditions of the substrate temperature $100^{\circ}C$, Ar 50 sccm, $O_2$ 5 sccm and working pressure 5 motor showed the best properties of an electrical resistivity of $1.763{\times}10^{-4}\;[{\Omega}{\cdot}cm]$, a carrier concentration of $1.801{\times}10^{21}\;[cm^{-3}]$, and a carrier mobility of $19.66\;[cm^2/V{\cdot}S]$, which indicates that it could be used as a transparent electrode for thin film transistor and flat panel display applications.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.699-707
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• 1995

The material that is both conductive in electricity and transparent to the visible ray is called transparent conducting thin film. It has many fields of application such as Solar Cell, Liquid Crystal display, Vidicon on T.V, transparent electrical heater, selective optical filter, and a optical electric device , etc. In the recent papers on several TCO( transparent conducting oxide ) material, the study is mainly focusing on ITO(indium tin oxide) because ITO shows good results on both optical and electrical properties. Nowaday, in the development of LCD(Liquid Crystal display), the low temperature process to reduce the production cost and to deposit ITO on polymer substrate (or low melting substrate) has been demanded. In this study, we prepared indium tin oxide(ITO) by a cylindrical DC magnetron sputtering with Indium-tin (9:1) alloy target instead of indium-tin oxide target. The resistivity of the film deposited in oxygen partial pressure of 5% and substrate temperature of 140.deg. C. is 1.6*10$\^$-4/.ohm..cm with 85% optical transmission in viaible ray.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.53-60
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• 2012

Modulated Pulse Power (MPP) magnetron sputtering is a new high-power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HPPMS) technology which overcomes the low deposition rate problem by modulating the pulse voltage shape, amplitude, and the duration. Highly ionized magnetron sputtering can be performed without arcing because it can be controlled as multiple steps of micro pulses within one overall pulse period in the range of 500-3,000 ${\mu}s$. In this study, the various waveforms of discharge voltage and current for micro pulse sets of MPP were investigated to find the possibility of controlling the strongly ionized plasma mode. Enhanced ionization of the sputtered metal atoms was obtained by OES. Large grained columnar structure can be grown by the strongly ionized plasma mode in the AZO deposition using MPP. In the most highly ionized deposition condition, the preferred orientation of (002) plane decreased, and the resistivity, therefore, increased by the plasma damage.