• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.481-488
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• 2022

The Cu₂ZnSn(S_xSe_1-x)₄ (CZTSSe) absorbers are promising thin film solar cells (TFSCs) materials, to replace existing Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) and CdTe photovoltaic technology. However, the best reported efficiency for a CZTSSe device, of 13.6 %, is still too low for commercial use. Recently, partially replacing the Zn²⁺ element with a Cd²⁺element has attracting attention as one of the promising strategies for improving the photovoltaic characteristics of the CZTSSe TFSCs. Cd²⁺ elements are known to improve the grain size of the CZTSSe absorber thin films and improve optoelectronic properties by suppressing potential defects, causing short-circuit current (J_sc) loss. In this study, the structural, compositional, and morphological characteristics of CZTSSe and CZCTSSe thin films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF), and Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), respectively. The FE-SEM images revealed that the grain size improved with increasing Cd²⁺ alloying in the CZTSSe thin films. Moreover, there was a slight decrease in small grain distribution as well as voids near the CZTSSe/Mo interface after Cd²⁺ alloying. The solar cells prepared using the most promising CZTSSe absorber thin films with Cd²⁺ alloying (8 min. 30 sec.) exhibited a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.33 %, J_sc of 34.0 mA/cm², and fill factor (FF) of 62.7 %, respectively.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.19-23
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• 2018

In this study, the feasibility of Al-based transparent electrodes for optoelectronic devices was investigated. Al thin films having thickness in the range of 3-12 nm were deposited on glass substrates, and sheet resistance was measured for films thicker than 7 nm and the values continue to decrease with increasing film thickness. The grain size in the films was found to increase with increasing grain size. 85% visible light transmittance was measured at the thickness of 3 nm, and decreased to 50% and 60% when the film thickness reaches 4 nm and 5 nm, respectively. The results of this study can be used in the applications of oxide/metal/oxide type transparent electrodes.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.31-34
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• 2018

In this study, the feasibility of ZnO/Al/ZnO flexible transparent electrodes for future flexible optoelectronic devices was investigated. All depositions were performed on PET substrates. The thicknesses of the top and bottom ZnO layers were 5-70 nm and 2.5-20 nm, respectively. The highest visible light transmittance was recorded when the thicknesses of the top and bottom ZnO layers 30 nm and 2.5 nm, respectively. 62% optical transmittance (at the wavelength of 400 nm) and sheet resistance of $19{\Omega}/{\Box}$ were measured. After repetitive bending test at a curvature radius of 5 mm, the transmittance and sheet resistance did not change.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.43.2-43.2
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• 2011

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) are transparent in the visible and show conductivity comparable to copper, and are environmentally stable. SWCNT films have high flexibility, conductivity and transparency approaching that indium tin oxide (ITO), and can be prepared inexpensively without vacuum equipment. Transparent conducting Films (TCF) of SWCNTs has the potential to replace conventional transparent conducting oxides (TCO, e.g. ITO) in a wide variety of optoelectronic devices, energy conversion and photovoltaic industry. However, the sheet resistance of SWCNT films is still higher than ITO films. A decreased in the resistivity of SWCNT-TCFs would be beneficial for such an application. We fabricated SWCNT sheet with $KAuBr_4$ on PET substrate. Arc-discharge SWCNTs were dispersed in deionized water by adding sodum dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as surfactant and sonicated, followed by the centrifugation. The dispersed SWCNT was spray-coated on PET substrate and dried on a hotplate at $100^{\circ}C$. When the spray process was terminated, the TCF was immersed into deionized water to remove the surfactant and then it was dried on hotplate. The TCF film was then treated with AuBr4-, rinsed with deionized water and dried. The surface morphology of TCF was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy. The sheet resistance and optical transmission properties of the TCF were measured with a four-point probe method and a UV-visible spectrometry, respectively. $HNO_3$ treated SWCNT films with Au nano-particles have the lowest 61 ${\Omega}$/< sheet resistance in the 80% transmittance. Sheet resistance was decreased due to the increase of the hole concentration at the washed SWCNT surface by p-type doping of $AuBr_4{^-}$.

• 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 Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.246.1-246.1
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• 2014

Over the past several years, colloidal core/shell type quantum dots lighting-emitting diodes (QDLEDs) have been extensively studied and developed for the future of optoelectronic applications. In the work, we fabricate an inverted CdSe/ZnS quantum dot (QD) based light-emitting diodes (QDLED). In order to reduce work function of indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode for inverted structure, a very thin (<10 nm) polyethylenimine ethoxylated (PEIE) is used as surface modifier[1] instead of conventional metal oxide electron injection layer. The PEIE layer substantially reduces the work function of ITO electrodes which is estimated to be 3.08 eV by ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS). From transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study, CdSe/ZnS QDs are uniformly distributed and formed by a monolayer on PEIE layer. In this inverted QDLEDs, blend of poly (9,9-di-n-octyl-fluorene-alt-benzothiadiazolo) and poly(N,N'-bis(4-butylphenyl)-N,N'-bis(phenyl)benzidine] are used as hole transporting layer (HTL) to improve hole transporting property. At the operating voltage of 8 V, the QDLED device emitted spectrally orange color lights with high luminance up to 2450 cd/m2, and showed current efficacy of 0.6 cd/A, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.5 no.8
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• pp.936-944
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• 1995

The effects of Spinodal decomposition induced phase separated microstructure of InGaAsP/InP heterostructure on photoluminescence(PL) intensity and FWHM(full-width at half maximum) were investigated in this study. Lattice mismatches were measured by double crystal x-ray diffractometer, and the microstructures of phase separated InGaAsP were observed by transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the misfit stress calculated from lattice mismatch was related to the periodicity of Spinodal modulation. Strong dependence of PL intensity and FWHM on the modulation periodicity was also found. For systematic understanding of these observations, the interaction elastic strain energy function induced by misfit stress was proposed. The calculation illustrated that the microstructure of the epilayer such as Spinodal decomposition played an important role in determining the optoelectronic properties such as PL intensity and PL FWHM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.204.2-204.2
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• 2013

Wide band gap II-VI semiconductors have attracted the interest of many research groups during the past few years due to the possibility of their applications in light-emitting diodes and laser diodes. Among the II-VI semiconductors, ZnO is an important optoelectronic device material for use in the violet and blue regions because of its wide direct band gap (Eg ~3.37 eV) and large exciton binding energy (60 meV). F-doped ZnO (FZO) and undoped ZnO thin films were grown onto quartz substrate by the sol-gel spin-coating method. The doping level in the solution, designated by F/Zn atomic ratio of was varied from 0 to 5 in 1 steps. To investigate the effects of the structure and optical properties of FZO thin films were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL). In the XRD, the residual stress, FWHM, bond length, and average grain size were changed with increasing the doping concentration. For the PL spectra, the high INBE/IDLE ratio of the FZO thin films doping concentration at 1 at.% than the other samples.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.732-738
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• 2011

Silicon oxide thin films were deposited by using a plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition technique to investigate the light emission properties. The photoluminescence characteristics were divided into two categories along the relative ratio of the flow rates of $SiH_4$ and $N_2O$ source gases, which show light emission in the broad/visible range and a light emission peak at 380 nm. We attribute the broad/visible light emission and the light emission peak to the quantum confinement effect of nanocrystalline silicon and the Si=O defects, respectively. Changes in the photoluminescence spectra were observed after the post-annealing processes. The photoluminescence spectra of the broad light emission in the visible range shifted to the long wavelength and were saturated above an annealing temperature of $900^{\circ}C$ or after 1 hour annealing at $970^{\circ}C$. However, the position of the light emission peak at 380 nm did not change at all after the post-annealing processes. The light emission intensities at 380 nm initially increased, and decreased at annealing temperatures above $700^{\circ}C$ or after 1 hour annealing at $700^{\circ}C$. The photoluminescence behaviors after the annealing processes can be explained bythe size change of the nanocrystalline silicon and the density change of Si=O defect in the films, respectively. These results support the possibility of using a silicon-based light source for Si-optoelectronic integrated circuits and/or display devices.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.167-173
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• 2021

There is an increasing interest in manufacturing various electronic devices on a bendable substrate. In this paper, we observed a surface morphology by annealing for 20 minutes at temperatures of 150 ℃, 350 ℃, and 550 ℃, respectively, with samples coated by chromium and aluminum. Data on surfaces are investigated using high-resolution SEM and AFM that can measure roughness up to nm. There is no difference from the sample without heat treatment up to 350 ℃, but the change of crystal grains can be observed at 550 ℃. In the future, for application to the flexible optoelectronic field, additional characteristics such as electrical conductivity and reflectivity will be analyzed and optical devices will be manufactured. In conclusion, we will explore the possibility of applying metal materials to flexible electronic devices.