• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.391-394
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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 HCl (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 (0.9 mTorr) and high substrate temperatures ($\leq$30$0^{\circ}C$), 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.883-888
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• 2007

Investigation of improving the properties of UV detector which uses the wide bandgap of ZnO are under active progress. The present study focused on the design and fabrication of i-ZnO/p-inversion $layer/n^--Si$ Epi. which is characterized with very thin p-type inversion layer for UV detectors. The i-ZnO thin film for achieving p-inversion layer which was grown by RF sputtering at $450^{\circ}C$ and then annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ in $O_2$ gas for 20 min shows good intrinsic properties. High (0002) peak intensity of the i-ZnO film is shown on XRD spectrum and it is confirmed by XPS analysis that the ratio of Zn : O of the i-ZnO film is nearly 1 : 1. Measurement shows high transmission of 79.5 % in UV range (< 400 nm) for the i-ZnO film. Measurement of $V_r-I_{ph}$ shows high UV photo-current of 1.2 mA under the reverse bias of 30 V.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2008.07a
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• pp.1262-1263
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• 2008

Recently film-typed dye sensitized solar cell(DSC) attracts much attention with increasing applications for its flexibility and transparency. The ZnO:Al thin film, which serves mainly as transparent conducting electrode, Aluminium-doped zinc oxide(ZnO:Al) thin film has emerged as one of the most promising transparent conducting films since it is inexpensive, mechanically stable, and highly resistant to deoxidation. In this paper ZnO:Al thin film was deposited on the polyethylene terephthalate(PET) substrate by the capacitively coupled r. f. magnetron sputtering method. The effects of gas pressure and r. f. discharge power on the morphological, electrical and optical properties of ZnO:Al thin film were studied. Especially the variation in substrate thickness after sputtering and surface morphology of the substrate were investigated and clarified. The results showed that the film deposited on the PET substrate at r. f. discharge power of 180 W showed the minimum resistivity of about $1.5{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$ and a transmittance of about 93%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.236.1-236.1
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• 2015

The surface morphology of front transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films is very important to achieve high current density in amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film solar cells since it can scatter the light in a better way. In this study, we present the low cost hydrothermal deposited uniform zinc oxide (ZnO) nano-flower structure with various aspect ratios for a-Si thin film solar cells. The ZnO nano-flower structures with various aspect ratios were grown on the RF magnetron sputtered AZO films. The diameters and length of the ZnO nano-flowers was controlled by varying the annealing time. The length of ZnO nano-flowers were varied from 400 nm to $2{\mu}m$ while diameter was kept higher than 200 nm to obtain different aspect ratios. The ZnO nano-flowers with higher surface area as compared to conventional ZnO nano structure are preferred for the better light scattering. The conductivity and crystallinity of ZnO nano-flowers can be enhanced by annealing in hydrogen atmosphere at 350 oC. The vertical aligned ZnO nano-flowers showed higher haze ratio as compared to the commercially available FTO films. We also observed that the scattering in the longer wavelength region was favored for the high aspect ratio of ZnO nano-flowers. Therefore, we proposed low cost and vertically aligned ZnO nano-flowers for the high performance of thin film solar cells.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.59-62
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• 2013

We investigated the effects of ZnO thin film deposition methods on the performance of inverted polymer solar cells with a structure of ITO/ZnO/P3HT:PCBM/MoO3/Al. The ZnO thin films were deposited by various methods (spin coating of nanoparticles, sol-gel process, atomic layer deposition) and their morphology was analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The device with ZnO nanoparticle thin films showed the highest power conversion efficiency of 3 % with low series resistance and high shunt resistance. The superior performance of the device with the ZnO nanoparticle layer is attributed to better electron extraction capability.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.112-112
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• 2010

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) thin-films were deposited according to the magnetron sputtering method. The deposited ZnO films were annealed with RTA equipment at various annealing temperatures in an vacuum ambient. The influence of the annealing temperature on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of the ZnO films was experimentally investigated, and the effect of conductivity of the ZnO active layer on the device performance of the oxide-TFT was tested. As a result, an increase of the annealing temperature was attributed to improvements of crystallinity in ZnO films. The grain size was found to lead to an increase of conductivity in the ZnO films. Fabricated ZnO TFTs with annealed ZnO active layer provided good performance in the TFT devices. Consequently, the performance of the TFT was determined by the conductivity of the ZnO film, which was related to the structural properties of the ZnO film.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.51-54
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• 2008

In this study, we investigated variations in undoped ZnO thin film properties with working pressure, $O_2$/Ar ratio, and annealing ambient. Higher vacuum pressure during deposition was observed to bring about slower growth rate resulting in samples with better crystallinity as well as hole generation efficiency through formation of shallower oxygen interstitial. Given that $O_2$/Ar ratio is greater than unity, O provided from the ambient to ZnO during annealing was found to preferably situate at interstitial sites. When He was used for the second annealing, significant changes were not observed. On the other hand, O ambient caused increased density of oxygen interstitial, thereby making the film more intrinsic-like high resistivity ZnO.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.103-105
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• 2001

ZnO thin films on glass substrate were deposited by RF sputter with various $Ar/O_2$ gas ratio. Crystallinities, surface morphologies, and electrical properties of the films were investigated by XRD(x-ray diffractometer), and SEM (scanning electron microscopy) analyses. The facing targets sputtering system can deposit thin film at plasma free condition and change the deposition condition in wide range. We suggested that a very suitable $Ar/O_2$ gas of ratio should be 50/50 for preparation of high quality ZnO films with good C-axis orientation.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.13-16
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• 2003

Mn-doped $ZnGa_{2}O_{4}$:$Mn^{2+}$ (M=S, Se) thin film phosphors have been grown using a pulsed laser deposition technique under various growth conditions. The structural characterization carr~ed out on a series of $ZnGa_{2}O_{4}$:$Mn^{2+}$ (M=S, Se) films grown on MgO(l00) substrates usmg Zn-rich ceramic targets. Oxygen pressure was varied from 50 to 200 mTorr and Zn/Ga ratio was the function of oxygen pressure. XRD patterns showed that the lattice constants of the $ZnGa_{2}O_{4}$:$Mn^{2+}$ (M=S, Se) thin film decrease with the substitution of sulfur and selenium for the oxygen in the $ZnGa_2O_4$. Measurements of photoluminescence (PL) properties of $ZnGa_{2}O_{4}$:$Mn^{2+}$ (M=S, Se) thin films have indicated that MgO(100) is one of the most promised substrates for the growth of high quality $ZnGa_2O_{4-x}M_{x}$:$Mn^{2+}$ (M=S, Se) thin films. In particular, the incorporation of Sulfur or Selenium into $ZnGa_2O_4$ lattice could induce a remarkable increase in the intensity of PL. The increasing of green emission intensity was observed with $ZnGa_2O_{3.925}Se_{0.075}:$Mn^{2+}$ and $ZnGa_2O_{3.925}S_{0.05}$:$Mn^{2+}$ films, whose brightness was increased by a factor of 3.1 and 1.4 in comparison with that of $ZnGa_{2}O_{4}$:$Mn^{2+}$ films, respectively. These phosphors may promise for application to the flat panel displays.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.211-216
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• 2020

Amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) thin film transistors, because of their relatively low mobility, have limits in attempts to fulfill high-end specifications for display backplanes. In-Zn-O (IZO) is a promising semiconductor material for high mobility device applications with excellent transparency to visible light region and low temperature process capability. In this paper, the effects of working pressure on the physical and electrical properties of IZO films and thin film transistors are investigated. The working pressure is modulated from 2 mTorr to 5 mTorr, whereas the other process conditions are fixed. As the working pressure increases, the extracted optical band gap of IZO films gradually decreases. Absorption coefficient spectra indicate that subgap states increase at high working pressure. Furthermore, IZO film fabricated at low working pressure shows smoother surface morphology. As a result, IZO thin film transistors with optimum conditions exhibit excellent switching characteristics with high mobility (≥ 30㎠/Vs) and large on/off ratio.