• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.375-382
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• 2019

Homogeneous multicomponent indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) ceramics for transparent electrode targets are prepared from the oxides and nitrates as the source materials, and their properties are characterized. The selected compositions were $In_2O_3:Ga_2O_3:ZnO$ = 1:1:2, 1:1:6, and 1:1:12 in mole ratio based on oxide. As revealed by X-ray diffraction analysis, calcination of the selected oxide or nitrides at $1200^{\circ}C$ results in the formation of $InGaZnO_4$, $InGaZn_3O_6$, and $InGaZn_5O_8$ phases. The 1:1:2, 1:1:6, and 1:1:12 oxide samples pressed in the form of discs exhibit relative densities of 96.9, 93.2, and 84.1%, respectively, after sintering at $1450^{\circ}C$ for 12 h. The $InGaZn_3O_6$ ceramics prepared from the oxide or nitrate batches comprise large grains and exhibit homogeneous elemental distribution. Under optimized conditions, IGZO multicomponent ceramics with controlled phases, high densities, and homogeneous microstructures (grain and elemental distribution) are obtained.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.360-360
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• 2012

Zn-Sn-O (Zinc-Tin-Oxide; ZTO) thin films have been gaining extensive academic and industrial attentions owing to a semiconducting channel materials applicable to large-sized flat-panel displays. Due to the constituent oxides i.e., ZnO and SnO2, the resultant Zn-Sn-O thin films possess artificially controllable bandgaps and transmittances especially effective in the visible regime. The current approach employed RF sputtering in depositing the Zn-Sn-O thin films onto glass substrates at ambient conditions. This work places its main emphases on the electrical/optical features which are closely related to the combinations of processing variables. The electrical characterizations are performed using dc-based current-voltage characteristics and ac-based impedance spectroscopy. The optical constants, i.e., refractive index and extinction coefficient, are calculated through spectroscopic ellipsometry along with the estimation of bandgaps. The charge transport of the deposited ZTO thin films is based on electrons characteristic of n-type conduction. In addition to the basic electrical/optical information, the delicate manipulation of n-type conduction is indispensible in diversifying the industrial applications of the ZTO thin films as active devices in information and energy products. Ultimately, the electrical properties are correlated to the processing variables along with the underlying mechanism which largely determines the electrical and optical properties.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.149-157
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• 2009

Reported herein is the architecture for a nonvolatile n-type memory paper field-effect transistor. The device was built via the hybrid integration of natural cellulose fibers (pine and eucalyptus fibers embedded in resin with ionic additives), which act simultaneously as substrate and gate dielectric, using passive and active semiconductors, respectively, as well as amorphous indium zinc and gallium indium zinc oxides for the gate electrode and channel layer, respectively. This was complemented by the use of continuous patterned metal layers as source/drain electrodes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.686-691
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• 2008

There are no many research reports on the preparation of ZnO by electrochemical oxidation since the zinc oxide is very easily dissolved in an acidic or basic environment, even though zinc oxides have attracted many attentions because of their optical/electrical properties. In this paper, we describe the fabrication of self-ordered stripes of ZnO by anodization of Zn in an ethanolic sulfuric acid. The formation of stripes of ZnO originating from Zn is attributed to water-selective dissolution of ZnO during anodization. We study in detail the effects of concentration of $H_2SO_4$, applied potential, anodization time, and addition of a small amount of water on the fabrication of stripes of ZnO. Mechanisms for the fabrication of ZnO stripes are discussed in terms of the above-mentioned effects.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.42.2-42.2
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• 2010

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are of significant importance for their applications in various devices, such as light-emitting diodes, thin-film solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes, liquid crystal displays, and so on. In order for TCOs to contribute to the performance improvement of these devices, TCOs should have high transmittance and good electrical properties simultaneously. Sn-doped $In_2O_3$ (ITO) is the most commonly used TCO. However, indium is toxic and scarce in nature. Thus, ZnO has attracted a lot of attention because of the possibility for replacing ITO. In particular, group III impurity-doped ZnO showed the optoelectronic properties comparable to those of ITO electrodes. Al-doped ZnO exhibited the best performance among various doped ZnO films because of the high substitutional doping efficiency. However, in order for the Al-doped ZnO to replace ITO in electronic devices, their electrical and optical properties should further significantly be improved. In this connection, different ways such as a variation of deposition conditions, different deposition techniques, and post-deposition annealing processes have been investigated so far. Among the deposition methods, RF magnetron sputtering has been extensively used because of the easiness in controlling deposition parameters and its fast deposition rate. In addition, when combined with post-deposition annealing in a reducing ambient, the optoelectronic properties of Al-doped ZnO films were found to be further improved. In this presentation, we deposited Al-doped ZnO (ZnO:$Al_2O_3$ = 98:2 wt%) thin films on the glass and sapphire substrates using RF magnetron sputtering as a function of substrate temperature. In addition, the ZnO samples were annealed in different conditions, e.g., rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ ambient for 1 min, tube-furnace annealing at $500^{\circ}C$ in $N_2:H_2$=9:1 gas flow for 1 hour, or RTA combined with tube-furnace annealing. It is found that the mobilities and carrier concentrations of the samples are dependent on growth temperature followed by one of three subsequent post-deposition annealing conditions.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2694-2698
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• 2012

Materials on the scale of nanoscale have widely been used as research topics because of their interesting characteristics and aspects they bring into the field. Out of the many metal oxides, zinc oxide (ZnO) was chosen to be fabricated as nanofibers using the electrospinning method for potential uses of solar cells and sensors. After ZnO nanofibers were obtained, calcination temperature effects on the ZnO nanofibers were studied and reported here. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that the aggregation of the ZnO nanofibers progressed by calcination. X-ray diffraction (XRD) study showed the hcp ZnO structure was enhanced by calcination at 873 and 1173 K. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) confirmed the crystallinity of the calcined ZnO nanofibers. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) verified the thermal oxidation of Zn species by calcination in the nanofibers. These techniques have helped us deduce the facts that the diameter of ZnO increases as the calcination temperature was raised; the process of calcination affects the crystallinity of ZnO nanofibers, and the thermal oxidation of Zn species was observed as the calcination temperature was raised.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.426.1-426.1
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• 2016

We report high work function Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) films as insertion layer as a function of O2 flow rate between transparent conducting oxides (TCO) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiOx:H) layer to improve open circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) for high efficiency thin film solar cell. However, amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells exhibit poor fill factors due to a Schottky barrier like impedance at the interface between a-SiOx:H windows and TCO. The impedance is caused by an increasing mismatch between the work function of TCO and that of p-type a-SiOx:H. In this study, we report on the silicon thin film solar cell by using as insertion layer of O2 reactive AZO films between TCO and p-type a-SiOx:H. Significant efficiency enhancement was demonstrated by using high work-function layers (4.95 eV at O2=2 sccm) for engineering the work function at the key interfaces to raise FF as well as Voc. Therefore, we can be obtained the conversion efficiency of 7 % at 13mA/cm2 of the current density (Jsc) and 63.35 % of FF.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07c
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• pp.1482-1484
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• 2002

Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are necessary as front electrode for most thin film solar cell. In our paper, transparent conducting aluminum-doped Zinc oxide films (ZnO:Al) were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass (Corning 1737) substrate as a variation of the deposition condition. After deposition, the smooth ZnO:Al films were etched in diluted HCI (0.5%) to examine the electrical and surface morphology properties as a variation of the time. The most important deposition condition of surface-textured ZnO films by chemical etching is the processing pressure and the substrate temperature. In low pressures (0.9mTorr) and high substrate temperatures $({\leq}300^{\circ}C)$, the surface morphology of films exhibits a more dense and compact film structure with effective light-trapping to apply the silicon thin film solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.249-249
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• 2011

투명전도성산화물(transparent conducting oxides, TCOs) 박막은 전기 전도성과 광투과성이 우수하여 유기발광다이오드(organic light-emitting diode, OLED), 태양전지(solar cell), 발광다이오드(LED) 등의 광전자 소자에 널리 응용되고 있다. 특히 LED에서 p-GaN층에서 전류가 층안에서 충분하게 확산되지 않기 때문에, TCO는 균일하게 전류를 흘려보내기 위해서 전류확산층(current spreading layer)으로 사용된다. 그 중 널리 쓰이는 산화인듐주석(indium tin oxide, ITO)은 고가의 indium가격과 인체에 유해한 독성 등이 문제점으로 지적되고 있다. 따라서 indium의 함량을 저감하거나 함유하지 않은 새로운 조성의 친환경적 대체 TCO 개발에 대한 연구가 많이 진행되고 있다. 이러한 반도체 재료 중 하나인 AZO (Al-doped zinc oxide, Al2O3 : 2wt.%)는 3.3 eV의 넓은 에너지 밴드갭을 가지며, 가시광선 및 근적외선 파장영역에서 높은 투과율을 나타낸다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 GaN기반 LED 응용을 위한 전류확산층으로 ITO 대신 AZO의 특성을 연구하였다. 박막 증착율이 높고, 제작과정의 조정이 용이한 RF magnetron 스퍼터를 이용하여 glass기판 위에 AZO, Ni/AZO, NiOx/AZO를 증착하였다. 이어서 $N_2$ 분위기에서 다양한 온도 조건에서 열처리(rapid thermal annealing, RTA)하여 전기적 광학적 특성에 대하여 비교 분석하였다.