• Journal of Information Display
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.15-20
• /
• 2008

A DC-magnetron inline sputter was established, and the influence of the base pressure on the structural characteristics of the ITO thin films was studied. When the inline sputter system was established and operated for ITO sputtering, its initial vacuum level did not go below $5\times10^{-6}$ torr. The vacuum leak test was conducted by measuring t he elapsed time until the vacuum level reached $1\times10^{-6}$ torr. The base pressure was successfully maintained at $1\times10^{-6}$ torr for 900 min, and the uniformity of the ITO film that had been deposited at this pressure significantly improved.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.92-97
• /
• 2015

The design of the glass-carrier was studied using simulations of the temperature distribution of an ITO deposition inline-sputter process. The temperature distribution was simulated in Heating Chamber 7, and in the ITO Deposition Chambers 8 and 9. The temperature distribution of the glass sheets was low in both the lower and upper lines. Moreover, it was observed that the temperature in Chamber 8 significantly affected the temperature in Chamber 9, and that the latter was hotter. The rear of the chambers were subjected to more heating than the fronts, so the temperature range at the back was wider. Redesigning the shape of the carrier made it possible to load more glass sheets on the glass carrier, and to make deposits on the ITO glass at higher temperature, over a wider area.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2016.02a
• /
• pp.319.1-319.1
• /
• 2016

Recently, the Al-doped ZnO (ZnO:Al) films are intensively used in thin film a-Si solar cell applications due to their high transmittance and good conductivity. The textured ZnO:Al films are used to enhance the light trapping in thin film solar cells. The wet etch process is used to texture ZnO:Al films by dipping in diluted acidic solutions like HCl or HF. During that process the glass substrate could be damaged by the acidic solution and it may be difficult to apply it for the inline mass production process since it has to be done outside the chamber. In this paper we report a new technique to control the surface morphology of RF-sputtered ZnO:Al films. The ZnO:Al films are textured with vaporized HF formed by the mixture of HF and H2SiO3 solution. Even though the surface of textured ZnO:Al films by vapor etching process showed smaller and sharper surface structures compared to that of the films textured by wet etching, the haze value was dramatically improved. We achieved the high haze value of 78% at the wavelength of 540 nm by increasing etching time and HF concentration. The haze value of about 58% was achieved at the wavelength of 800 nm when vapor texturing was used. The ZnO:Al film texture by HCl had haze ratio of about 9.5 % at 800 nm and less than 40 % at 540 nm. In addition to low haze ratio, the texturing by HCl was very difficult to control etching and to keep reproducibility due to its very fast etching speed.