• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2011

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a typical highly Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) currently used as a transparent electrode material. Most widely used deposition method is the sputtering process for ITO film deposition because it has a high deposition rate, allows accurate control of the film thickness and easy deposition process and high electrical/optical properties. However, to apply high quality ITO thin film in a flexible microelectronic device using a plastic substrate, conventional DC magnetron sputtering (DMS) processed ITO thin film is not suitable because it needs a high temperature thermal annealing process to obtain high optical transmittance and low resistivity, while the generally plastic substrates has low glass transition temperatures. In the room temperature sputtering process, the electrical property degradation of ITO thin film is caused by negative oxygen ions effect. This high energy negative oxygen ions(about over 100eV) can be critical physical bombardment damages against the formation of the ITO thin film, and this damage does not recover in the room temperature process that does not offer thermal annealing. Hence new ITO deposition process that can provide the high electrical/optical properties of the ITO film at room temperature is needed. To solve these limitations we develop the Magnetic Field Shielded Sputtering (MFSS) system. The MFSS is based on DMS and it has the plasma limiter, which compose the permanent magnet array (Fig.1). During the ITO thin film deposition in the MFSS process, the electrons in the plasma are trapped by the magnetic field at the plasma limiters. The plasma limiter, which has a negative potential in the MFSS process, prevents to the damage by negative oxygen ions bombardment, and increases the heat(-) up effect by the Ar ions in the bulk plasma. Fig. 2. shows the electrical properties of the MFSS ITO thin film and DMS ITO thin film at room temperature. With the increase of the sputtering pressure, the resistivity of DMS ITO increases. On the other hand, the resistivity of the MFSS ITO slightly increases and becomes lower than that of the DMS ITO at all sputtering pressures. The lowest resistivity of the DMS ITO is $1.0{\times}10-3{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and that of the MFSS ITO is $4.5{\times}10-4{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$. This resistivity difference is caused by the carrier mobility. The carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO is 40 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, which is significantly higher than that of the DMS ITO (10 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$). The low resistivity and high carrier mobility of the MFSS ITO are due to the magnetic field shielded effect. In addition, although not shown in this paper, the roughness of the MFSS ITO thin film is lower than that of the DMS ITO thin film, and TEM, XRD and XPS analysis of the MFSS ITO show the nano-crystalline structure. As a result, the MFSS process can effectively prevent to the high energy negative oxygen ions bombardment and supply activation energies by accelerating Ar ions in the plasma; therefore, high quality ITO can be deposited at room temperature.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.248-256
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• 2023

Indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent electrode film has been widely adopted for the various applications such as display and electric vehicle. In this paper, we studied how to enhance the thermoforming stability of ITO film by applying the highly conductive Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) thin layer. Based on the change of sheet resistance value, the influence of the additional solvent with different boiling point was investigated for the PEDOT:PSS coating solution. In addition, by analyzing optical transmittance and Raman spectrum, we confirmed the key mechanism which determine the final electrical conductivity of the PEDOT:PSS on ITO film using an ethylene glycol solvent. The final ITO transparent electrode coated with PEDOT:PSS performed the outstanding endurance of electrical conduction even in 126% stretching condition.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.179-183
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• 2005

A photodiode capable of obtaining a sufficient photo/ dark current ratio at both forward bias state and reverse bias state is proposed. The photodiode includes a glass substrate, an aluminum film formed as a lower electrode over the glass substrate, an alumina film formed as an insulator barrier over the aluminum film, a hydrogenated amorphous silicon film formed as a photo conduction layer over a portion of the alumina film, and a transparent conduction film formed as an upper electrode over the hydro-generated amorphous silicon film. A good quality alumina $(Al_2O_3)$ film is formed by oxidation of aluminum film using electrolyte solution of succinic acid. Alumina is used as a potential barrier between amorphous silicon and aluminum. It controls dark-current restriction. In case of photodiodes made by changing the formation condition of alumina, we can obtain a stable dark current $(\~10^{-12}A)$ in alumina thickness below $1000{\AA}$. At the reverse bias state of the negative voltage in ITO (Indium Tin Oxide), the photo current has substantially constant value of $5{\times}10^{-9}$ A at light scan of 100 1x. On the other hand, the photo/dark current ratios become higher at smaller thicknesses of the alumina film. Therefore, the alumina film is used as a thin insulator barrier, which is distinct from the conventional concept of forming the insulator barrier layer near the transparent conduction film. Also, the structure with the insulator thin barrier layer formed near the lower electrode, opposed to the ITO film, solves the interface problem of the ITO film because it provides an improved photo current/dark current ratio.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.935-938
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• 2010

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) films show a low electrical resistance and high transmittance in the visible range of an optical spectrum. The transparent electrodes have to get resistivity and sheet resistance less than $1{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}/cm$ and $10^3{\Omega}/sq$ respectively and transmittance over 80% at wavelength of 380nm~780nm. This study establishes DC magnetron sputtering process condition on ITO thin film by measuring electrical and optical properties of the thin film. As results, we obtained $300\;{\mu}{\Omega}cm$ resistivity of ITO films with good transmittance (above 90 %) under 90:10 wt% composition rate of $In_2O_3:SnO_2$. Also, we understood that the ITO thin film by DC magnetron sputtering depends on the deposition condition, especially substrate temperature, and the composition rate of $In_2O_3:SnO_2$ that is one of the most critical parameters was successfully optimized for high qualified transparent electrodes.

• 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 Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.373-379
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• 2013

Mg-doped zinc tin oxide (ZTO:Mg) thin films were prepared on glasses by rf magnetron sputtering. $O_2$ was introduced into the chamber during the sputtering. The optical properties of the films as a function of oxygen flow rate were studied. The crystal structure, elementary properties, and depth profiles of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), respectively. Bottom-gate transparent thin film transistors were fabricated on $N^+$ Si wafers, and the variation of mobility, threshold voltage etc. with the oxygen flow rate were observed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.10-10
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• 2009

We have fabricated transparent and flexible thin film transistor(TFT) on polyethylene terephthalate(PET) substrate using Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) film as active layer and electrode. The transfer printing method was used for printing the device layer on target plastic substrate at room temperature. This approach have an advantage to separate the high temperature annealing process to improve the electrical properties of ZnO TFT from the device process on plastic substrate. The resulting devices on plastic substrate presented mechanical and electrical properties similar with those on rigid substrate.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.443-443
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• 2012

We fabricated a-IGZO TFT with AZO/Ag/AZO transparent multilayer source/drain contacts by rf magnetron sputtering. Enhanced electrical device performance of a-IGZO TFT with AZO/Ag/AZO multilayer S/D electrodes (W/L = = 400/50 mm) was achieved with a subs-threshold swing of 3.78 V/dec, a minimum off-current of 10-12 A, a threshold voltage of 1.80 V, a field effect mobility of 10.86 cm2/Vs, and an on/off ration of 9x109. It demonstrated the potential application of the AZO/Ag/AZO film as a promising S/D contact material for the fabrication of the high performance TFTs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.173-177
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• 2008

We have developed the transparent passivation layer for top emission organic light emitting diodes using CsCl thin film by the thermal evaporation method. The CsCl film was deposited on the Ca/Ag semitransparent cathode. The optical transmittance of Ca/ Ag/CsCl triple layer is higher than that of Ca/Ag double layer in the visible range. The device with a structure of glass/Ni/2-TNATA/a-NPD/Alq3:C545T/BCP/Alq3/Ca/Ag/CsCl results in higher efficiency than the device without CsCl passivation layer. The device without CsCl thin film shows a current efficiency of 7 cd/A, whereas the device passivated with CsCl layer shows an efficiency of 10 cd/A. This increase of efficiency isresulted from the increased optical extraction by the CsCl passivation layer.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.18-20
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• 2016

Transparent and conducting IGZO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering on thin Cu coated glass substrates to investigate the effect of a Cu buffer layer on the structural, optical, and electrical film properties. Although X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that both the IGZO single layer and IGZO/Cu bi-layered films were in the amorphous phase, the IGZO/Cu films showed a lower resistivity of 5.7×10⁻⁴ Ωcm due to the increased mobility and high carrier concentration. The decreased optical transmittance of the IGZO/Cu films was also attributed to a one order of magnitude higher carrier concentration than the IGZO films. From the observed results, the thin Cu layer is postulated to be an effective buffer film that can enhance the opto-electrical performance of the IGZO films in transparent thin film transistors.