• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.222-222
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• 2010

Transparent semiconductor oxide thin films have been attracting considerable attention as potential channel layers in thin film transistors (TFTs) owing to their several advantageous electrical and optical characteristics such as high mobility, high stability, and transparency. TFTs with ZnO or similar metal oxide semiconductor thin films as the active layer have already been developed for use in active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED). Of late, there have been several reports on TFTs fabricated with InZnO, AlZnSnO, InGaZnO, or other metal oxide semiconductor thin films as the active channel layer. These newly developed TFTs were expected to have better electrical characteristics than ZnO TFTs. In fact, results of these investigations have shown that TFTs with the new multi-component material have excellent electrical properties. In this work, we present TFTs with inverted coplanar geometry and with a novel HfInZnO active layer co-sputtered at room temperature. These TFTs are meant for use in low voltage, battery-operated mobile and flexible devices. Overall, the TFTs showed good performance: the low sub-threshold swing was low and the $I_{on/off}$ ratio was high.

• 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 Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.180-180
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• 2010

Thin film transistors (TFTs) based on oxide semiconductors have emerged as a promising technology, particularly for active-matrix TFT-based backplanes. Currently, an amorphous oxide semiconductor, such as InGaZnO, has been adopted as the channel layer due to its higher electron mobility. However, accurate and repeatable control of this complex material in mass production is not easy. Therefore, simpler polycrystalline materials, such as ZnO and $SnO_2$, remain possible candidates as the channel layer. Inparticular, ZnO-based TFTs have attracted considerable attention, because of their superior properties that include wide bandgap (3.37eV), transparency, and high field effect mobility when compared with conventional amorphous silicon and polycrystalline silicon TFTs. There are some technical challenges to overcome to achieve manufacturability of ZnO-based TFTs. One of the problems, the stability of ZnO-based TFTs, is as yet unsolved since ZnO-based TFTs usually contain defects in the ZnO channel layer and deep level defects in the channel/dielectric interface that cause problems in device operation. The quality of the interface between the channel and dielectric plays a crucial role in transistor performance, and several insulators have been reported that reduce the number of defects in the channel and the interfacial charge trap defects. Additionally, ZnO TFTs using a high quality interface fabricated by a two step atomic layer deposition (ALD) process showed improvement in device performance In this study, we report the fabrication of high performance ZnO TFTs with a $Si_3N_4$ gate insulator treated using plasma. The interface treatment using electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) $O_2$ plasma improves the interface quality by lowering the interface trap density. This process can be easily adapted for industrial applications because the device structure and fabrication process in this paper are compatible with those of a-Si TFTs.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.175-180
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• 2010

Transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films are widely used for optoelectronic applications. Among TCO materials, zinc oxide (ZnO) has been studied extensively for its high optical transmission and electrical conduction. In this study, the effects of $O_2$ plasma pretreatment on the properties of Ga-doped ZnO films (GZO) on polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate were studied. The $O_2$ plasma pretreatment process was used instead of conventional oxide buffer layers. The $O_2$ plasma treatment process has several merits compared with the oxide buffer layer treatment, especially on a mass production scale. In this process, an additional sputtering system for oxide composition is not needed and the plasma treatment process is easily adopted as an in-line process. GZO films were fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering process. To improve surface energy and adhesion between the PEN substrate and the GZO film, the $O_2$ plasma pre-treatment process was used prior to GZO sputtering. As the RF power and the treatment time increased, the contact angle decreased and the RMS surface roughness increased significantly. It is believed that the surface energy and adhesive force of the polymer surfaces increased with the $O_2$ plasma treatment and that the crystallinity and grain size of the GZO films increased. When the RF power was 100W and the treatment time was 120 sec in the $O_2$ plasma pretreatment process, the resistivity of the GZO films on the PEN substrate was $1.05\;{\times}\;10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$, which is an appropriate range for most optoelectronic applications.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 2008

We have investigated the effect of annealing on the structural and optical properties of polycrystalline Ga doped ZnO (GZO) films grown on glass substrates by RF-magnetron sputter at room temperature. The structural and optical properties of as-grown GZO films were characterized and then samples were annealed at $400{\sim}600^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ ambient for 30, 60 minutes, respectively. The field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to measure the grain size and the crystalline quality of the films. We found that the crystalline quality was improved and the grain size tends to be increased. The optical properties of GZO thin films were analyzed by UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometers. It is found that optical properties of thin films are increased by annealing and can be used for transparent electrode application. We believe that the appropriate post-growth heat treatment could be contributed to the improvement of GZO-based devices.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.342-346
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• 2004

Recently there has been a great world-wide interest in developing and characterizing new nano-structured materials. These newly developed materials are often prepared in limited quantities and shapes unsuitable for the extensive mechanical testing. The development of depth sensing indentation methods have introduced the advantage of load and depth measurement during the indentation cycle. In the present work, ZnO thin films are prepared on the Glass, GaAs(100), Si(111), and Si(100) substrates at different temperatures by pulsed laser deposition(PLD) method. Because the potential energy in c-axis is law, the films always shaw c-axis orientation at the optimized conditions in spite of the different substrates. Thin films are investigated by X-ray diffractometer and Nano indentation equipment. From these measurements it is possible to get elastic modulus and hardness of ZnO thin films on all substrates.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.359-365
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• 2007

In this paper we present a bottom-gate type of zinc oxide (ZnO) and Gallium (Ga) doped zinc oxide (GZO) based thin film transistors (TFTs) through applying a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering method at room temperature. The gate leakage current can be reduced up to several ph by applying $SiO_2$ thermally grown instead of using new gate oxide materials. The root mean square (RMS) values of the ZnO and GZO film surface were measured as 1.07 nm and 1.65 nm, respectively. Also, the transmittances of the ZnO and GZO film were more than 80% and 75%, respectively, and they were changed as their film thickness. The ZnO and GZO film had a wurtzite structure that was arranged well as a (002) orientation. The ZnO TFT had a threshold voltage of 2.5 V, a field effect mobility of $0.027\;cm^2/(V{\cdot}s)$, a on/off ratio of $10^4$, a gate voltage swing of 17 V/decade and it operated in a enhancement mode. In case of the GZO TFT, it operated in a depletion mode with a threshold voltage of -3.4 V, a field effect mobility of $0.023\;cm^2/(V{\cdot}s)$, a on/off ratio of $2{\times}10^4$ and a gate voltage swing of 3.3 V/decade. We successfully demonstrated that the TFTs with the enhancement and depletion mode type can be fabricated by using pure ZnO and 1wt% Ga-doped ZnO.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.155-158
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• 2017

In this paper, ZnO Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) were fabricated by a sol-gel method using a low-temperature process, and their physical and electrical characteristics were analyzed. To lower the process temperature to $200^{\circ}C$, we used a zinc nitrate hydrate ($Zn(NO_3)_2{\cdot}xH_2O$) precursor. Thermo Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA) analysis showed that the zinc nitrate hydrate precursor solution had 1.5% residual organics, much less than the 6.5% of zinc acetate dihydrate at $200^{\circ}C$. In the sol-gel method, organic materials in the precursor disrupt formation of a high-quality film, and high-temperature annealing is needed to remove the organic residuals, which implies that, by using zinc nitrate hydrate, ZnO devices can be fabricated at a much lower temperature. Using an X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD) and an X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS), $200^{\circ}C$ annealed ZnO film with zinc nitrate hydrate (ZnO (N)) was found to have an amorphous phase and much more oxygen vacancy ($V_o$) than Zn-O bonds. Despite no crystallinity, the ZnO (N) had conductance comparable to that of ZnO with zinc acetate dihydrate (ZnO (A)) annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ as in TFTs. These results show that sol-gel could be made a potent process for low-cost and flexible device applications by optimizing the precursors.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.53-54
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• 2006

Arsenic doped p-type ZnO thin films have been realized on intrinsic (100) GaAs substrate by RF magnetron sputtering and thermal annealing treatment. p-Type ZnO exhibits the hole concentration of $9.684{\times}10^{19}cm^3$, resistivity of $2.54{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$, and mobility of $25.37\;cm^2/Vs$. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of As doped p-type ZnO thin films reveal neutral acceptor bound exciton ($A^{0}X$) of 3.3437 eV and a transition between free electrons and acceptor levels (FA) of 3.2924 eV. Calculated acceptor binding energy ($E_A$) is about 0.1455 eV. Thermal activation and doping mechanism of this film have been suggested by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). p-Type formation mechanism of As doped ZnO thin film is more related to the complex model, namely, $As_{Zn}-2V_{Zn}$, in which the As substitutes on the Zn site, rather than simple model, Aso, in which the As substitutes on the O site. ZnO-based p-n junction was fabricated by the deposition of an undoped n-type ZnO layer on an As doped p-type ZnO layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2001.07a
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• pp.570-573
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• 2001

In this paper, GaN films have been grown on SiO$_2$/Si(100) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering. To obtain high quality GaN films, we used ZnO buffer layer and modified the process conditions. The charateristics of GaN films on RF power, substrate temperature and Ar/N$_2$gas ratio have been investigated by Auger electron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis. At RF power 150W, substrate temperature 500 $^{\circ}C$ and Ar/N$_2$=1:2 gas ratio, we could grow high quality GaN films. Through the atomic force microscope and photoluminescence analysises, it was observed that the crystallization of GaN films was improved with increasing annealing temperature and the optimal crystallization of GaN films was found at 1100 $^{\circ}C$ annealing temperature.