• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.175-175
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• 2010

Transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films are widely used as transparent conducting thin film material for application in various fields such as solar cells, optoelectronic devices, heat mirrors and gas sensors, etc. Recently the increased utilization of many transparent electrodes has accelerated the development of inexpensive TCO materials. Indium tin oxide (ITO) film is well-known for TCO materials because of its low resistivity, but there is disadvantage that it is too expensive. ZnO film is cheaper than ITO but it shows thermally poor stability. On the contrary, antimony-doped tin oxide films (ATO) are more stable than TCO films such as Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and ITO. Moreover, SnO2 film shows the best thermal and chemical stability, low cost and mechanical durability except the poor conductivity. However, annealing is proved to improve the conductivity of ATO film. Therefore, in this work, antimony (6 wt%) doped tin oxide films to improve the conductivity were deposited on 7059 corning glass by RF magnetron sputtering method for the application to transparent electrodes. In general, of all TCO films, glass is the most commonly selected substrate. However, for future development in flexible devices, glass is limited by its intrinsic inflexibility. In this study, we report the growth and properties of antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) films deposited on PES flexible substrate by using RF magnetron sputtering. The optimization process was performed varying the sputtering parameters, such as RF power and working pressure, and parameter effect on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the ATO films were investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.535-538
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• 2004

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) films have attracted considerable attention for transparent conducting films, because of their high conductivity, good optical transmittance from UV to near IR as well as a low-cost fabrication. To increase the conductivity of ZnO, doping of group III elements (Al, Ga, In and B) has been carried out. Transparent conducting films have been applied for optoelectric devices, the development of the transparent conducting thin films on flexible light-weight substrates are required. In this research, the transparent conducting ZnO thin films doped with Aluminum (Al) on polymer substrates were deposited by the RF magnetron suputtering method, and the structural, optical and electrical properties were investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.170-174
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• 2023

Nickel oxide is a nonstoichiometric transparent conductive oxide with p-type conductivity, a wide-band energy gap of 3.4~4.0 eV, and excellent chemical stability, making it a very important candidate as a material for bipolar devices. P-type conductivity in Transparent Conductive Oxides (TCO) is controlled by the oxygen vacancy concentration. During the TCO film deposition process, additional oxygen diffusing into the NiO structure causes the formation of Ni 3p ions and Ni vacancies. This eventually affects the hole concentration of the p-type oxide thin film. In this work, the surface morphology and the electrical characteristics were confirmed in accordance with the annealing atmosphere of the nickel oxide thin film.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.433-438
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• 2015

Zinc tin oxide transparent thin film transistors (ZTO TTFTs) were fabricated by using $n^+$ Si wafers as gate electrodes. Indium (In), aluminum (Al), indium tin oxide (ITO), silver (Ag), and gold (Au) were employed for source and drain electrodes, and the mobility and the threshold voltage of ZTO TTFTs were observed as a function of electrode. The ZTO TTFTs adopting In as electrodes showed the highest mobility and the lowest threshold voltage. It was shown that Ag and Au are not suitable for the electrodes of ZTO TTFTs. As the results of this study, it is considered that the interface properties of electrode/ZTO are more influential in the properties of ZTO TTFTs than the conductivity of electrode.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.267-271
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• 2009

Multicomponent transparent conducting oxide films were deposited on glass substrates at 150 by dual magnetron sputtering of AZO and ITO targets. In the case of mixing a limited amount of ITO (10W), resistivity of TCO films was significantly increased compared to the AZO film; from $3.5{\times}10^{-3}$ to $9.7{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. Deterioration of the electrical conductivity is attributed to the decreases in carrier concentration and Hall mobility. Improvement of the conductivity could be obtained for the films prepared with ITO powers larger than 40 W. The lowest resistivity ($\rho$) of $7.3{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ was achieved when ITO power was 100 W. Effects of $H_2$ incorporation on the electrical and optical properties of AZO-ITO films were investigated in this work. Addition of small amount of hydrogen resulted in the increase of carrier concentration and the improvement of electrical conductivity. It is apparent that the roughness of AZO-ITO films decreases dramatically after the transition of microstructure from polycrystalline to amorphous phase, which gives practical advantages such as an excellent uniformity of surface and a high etching rate. AZO-ITO films grown at sputtering ambient with hydrogen gas are expected to be applicable to optoelectronic devices such as organic light emitting diodes and flexible displays due to their sufficient electrical and structural properties.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.486-491
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• 2017

Silver nanowire (AgNW) transparent electrode is one of next generations of flexible and transparent electrode. The electrode shows high conductivity and high transparency comparable to ITO. However, the electrode is weak against heat. The wires are separated into nanodots at temperature above $200^{\circ}C$. It causes the electrical resistance increase. Moreover, it is vulnerable to oxygen and moisture in the atmosphere. The improvement of thermal and moisture resistance of silver nanowire transparent electrode is the most important for commercializing. We proposed silver nanowires transparent electrode which is capped with very thin nickel oxide layer. The nickel oxide layer is five nanometers of thickness, but the heat and moisture resistance of the transparent electrode is effectively improved. The AgNW/NiO electrode can endure at $300^{\circ}C$ of temperature for 30 minutes, and resistance is not increased for 180 hours at $85^{\circ}C$ of temperature and 85% of relative humidity. We showed an applications of transparent and flexible heater using the electrode, the heater is operated more than $180^{\circ}C$ of temperature.

• Ceramist
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.12-23
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• 2018

As the flexible displays have been considered as a breakthrough to make a new electronics category, transparent electrodes have also confronted with an emerging issue, i.e., they also need to be mechanically flexible. For this to be made possible, a transparent electrode capable of withstanding large amounts of strain must be developed. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been one of the most widely adopted transparent electrodes for displays and other transparent electronics, mainly supported by its high electrical conductivity and optical transparency. However, its brittle nature has forced the display industry to search for other alternatives. Recently, advances in nano-material researches have opened the door for various transparent conductive materials, which include carbon nanotube, graphene, Ag and Cu nanowire, and printable metal grids. Here we reviewed recently-published research works introducing flexible displays, all of which are employing the novel candidates for a conducting material.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.1055-1061
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• 1999

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) films were fabricated by vacuum deposition technique and their microwave shielding properties were investigated for the application to the transparent shield material. The vacuum coating was conducted in a RF co-sputtering machine. The film composition and structure associated with the sputtering conditions (argon and oxygen pressure. substrate temperature. RF input power) were investigated for the attainment of high electrical conductivity and good transparency. The electrical conductivity of IT0 films fabricated under the optimum deposition conditions (substrate temperature : $300^{\circ}C$. Ar flow rate : 20 sccm, Oxygen flow rate : 10 sccm, In/Sn input power : 50/30 W) showed 5.6$\times10^4$mho/m. The optical transparency is also considerably good. The microwave shielding properties including the dominant shielding mechanism are investigated from the electrical conductivity, thickness and skin depth of the ITO films. The total shielding effectiveness is then estimated to be 26 dB, which provides a suggestion that the IT0 films can be effectively used as the transparent shield material.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.316-316
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• 2014

Two different transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layers of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) and $WO_3$ were prepared by a rf sputtering process. Working pressure, deposition time, and target-to-substrate distance were varied for the sputtering process to improve electrical properties of the resulting layer. Thickness of the TCO layers was measured by a profile meter of ${\alpha}$-step. To evaluate the electrical conductivity, surface resistivity of the TCO layers was measured by a four-point probe technique. Decrease of the working pressure resulted in increase of deposition rate and decrease of surface resistivity of the resulting layer. Increase of the layer thickness due to increased deposition time resulted in decrease of surface resistivity of the resulting layer. The shorter the target-to-substrate distance was, the lower was the surface resistivity of the resulting layer.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.07c
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• pp.1553-1555
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• 2003

Coatings on glass with highly transparent conducting oxide films(TCOs) are performed mostly by using indium tin oxide(ITO). This Oxide material is very common for applications where both high electrical conductivity. Photovoltaic cells, transparent electrical heater, selective optical filter, and a optical transmittance are essential. In this study, ITO thin films were deposited on $SiO_2$/soda-line glass plates by a dc magnetron sputtering technique. The crystallinity and electrical properties of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction(XRD), atomic force microscopy(AFM) scanning and 4-point probe. The optical transmittance of ITO films in the range of 300-800nm were measured with a spectrophotometer. As a result, we obtained polycrystalline structured ITO films with (222), (400), and (440) peak. Transmittance of all the films were higher than 90% in the visible range.