• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.430.1-430.1
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• 2016

We present the concept of reducible fugitive material that conformally surrounds core Cu nanowire (NW) to fabricate transparent conducting electrode (TCE). Reducing atmosphere can corrodes/erodes the underlying/surrounding layers and might cause undesirable reactions such impurity doing and contamination, so that hydrogen-/forming gas based annealing is impractical to make device. In this regards, we introduce novel reducible shell conformally surrounding indivial CuNW to provide a protection against the oxidation when exposed to both air and solvent. Uniform copper lactate shell formation is readily achievable by injecting lactic acid to the CuNW dispersion as the acid reacts with the surface oxide/hydroxide or pure copper. Cu lactate shell prevents the core CuNW from the oxidation during the storage and/or film formation, so that the core-shell CuNW maintains without signficant oxidation for long time. Upon simple thermal annealing under vacuum or in nitrogen atmosphere, the Cu lactate shell is easily decomposed to pure Cu, providing an effective way to produce pure CuNW network TCE with typically sheet resistance of $19.8{\Omega}/sq$ and optical transmittance of 85.5% at 550 nm. Our reducible copper lactate core-shell Cu nanowires have the great advantage in fabrication of device such as composite transparent electrodes or solar cells.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.125-125
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• 2011

In this study, we investigated the electrical, optical, structural, and surface properties of indium zinc oxide (IZO)/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode grown by specially designed roll-to-roll sputtering system using the flexible substrate. By the continuous roll-to-roll sputtering of the bottom IZO, Ag, and top IZO layers at room temperature, they were able to fabricate a high quality IZO/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode. At optimized conditions, the bottom IZO layer (40 nm) was deposited on a flexible substrate. After deposition of the Bottom IZO layer, Ag layer was deposited onto the bottom IZO film as a function of DC power (200~500 W). Subsequently, the top IZO layer was deposited onto the Ag layer at identical deposition conditions to the bottom IZO layer (40 nm). We investigated the characteristics of IZO/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode as a function of Ag thickness. It was found that the electrical and optical properties of IZO/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode was mainly affected thickness of the Ag layer at optimized condition. In case of IZO/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode with the Ag power (350W), it exhibited a low sheet resistance of 7.1 ohm/square and a high transparency of 86.4%. Furthermore, we fabricated the touch screen panel using the IZO/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode, which demonstrate the possibility of the IZO/Ag/IZO multilayer electrode grown by roll-to-roll sputtering system as a transparent conducting layer in the touch screen panel.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.640-647
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• 2015

As the need for next-generation flexible electronics grows, novel materials and technologies that can replace conventional indium tin oxide (ITO) for transparent electrodes have been of great interest. Among them, a conducting polymer, especially poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) : poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT : PSS) is one of the most promising candidates because it is mechanically flexible, inexpensive, and capable of being processed in solution. Currently, there are a lot of research efforts on enhancing its electrical conductivity to the level of ITO or metal electrodes through chemical and/or physical processing. In this review article, we present various additives and pre-/post-deposition processing methods for improving the electrical conductivity of PEDOT : PSS. Some of representative reports are also introduced, which demonstrated the use of conductivity-enhanced PEDOT : PSS as transparent electrodes in electronics and energy conversion.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.439-444
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• 2022

Laser-induced plasmonic sintering of metal nanoparticles (NPs) is a promising technology to fabricate flexible conducting electrodes, since it provides instantaneous, simple, and scalable manufacturing strategies without requiring costly facilities and complex processes. However, the metal NPs are quite expensive because complicated synthesis procedures are needed to achieve long-term reliability with regard to chemical deterioration and NP aggregation. Herein, we report laser-induced Ag NP self-generation and sequential sintering process based on low-cost Ag organometallic material for demonstrating high-quality microelectrodes. Upon the irradiation of laser with 532 nm wavelength, pre-baked Ag organometallic film coated on a transparent polyimide substrate was transformed into a high-performance Ag conductor (resistivity of 2.2 × 10^-4 Ω·cm). To verify the practical usefulness of the technology, we successfully demonstrated a wearable transparent heater by using Ag-mesh transparent electrodes, which exhibited a high transmittance of 80% and low sheet resistance of 7 Ω/square.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.50.1-50.1
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• 2009

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) play an important role in thin-film solar cells in terms of low cost and performance improvement. Al-doped ZnO (AZO) is a very promising material for thin-film solar cellfabrication because of the wide availability of its constituent raw materials and its low cost. In this study, AZO films were prepared by low pressurechemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) using trimethylaluminum (TMA), diethylzinc(DEZ), and water vapor. In order to improve the absorbance of light, atypical surface texturing method is wet etching of front electrode using chemical solution. Alternatively, LPCVD can create a rough surface during deposition. This "self-texturing" is a very useful technique, which can eliminate additional chemical texturing process. The introduction of a TMA doping source has a strong influence on resistivity and the diffusion of light in a wide wavelength range.The haze factor of AZO up to a value of 43 % at 600 nm was achieved without an additional surface texturing process by simple TMA doping. The use of AZO TCO resulted in energy conversion efficiencies of 7.7 % when it was applied to thep-i-n a-Si:H thin film solar cell, which was comparable to commercially available fluorine doped tin oxide ($SnO_2$:F).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.901-906
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• 2006

The transparent conductive oxide(TCO) has been used in necessity as front electrode for increasing efficiency of LED. In our paper, aluminium-doped zinc oxide films(AZO), which has transparent conducting were prepared with RF magnetron sputtering system on glass substrate(corning 1737) and annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ for 2 hr in vacuum ambient and $600^{\circ}C$ for 2hr with $O_2$ ambient respectively. The smooth AZO films were etched in diluted HCL(0.5 %) to examine the surface properties, which in ambient post-annealing process. We confirmed that the electric, structural and optical properties of textured AZO thin films, which implemented using the methods of XRD, FWHM, AFM and Hall measurement. The properties of textured AZO thin films especially depended on the ambient post-annealing process. We presumed that the change of transmittances as R G B LED and the ambient post-annealing process will be increasing the efficiency of LED.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.1430-1431
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• 2011

To develope the transparent conducting oxide(TCO) films is one of the essential technologies to improve various properties of electro-optical devices such as dye-sensitized solar cells(DSCs). ITiO thin film is considered one of the candidates as TCO electrodes of DSCs because it shows many advantages such as the high transparency in long wavelength range above 700nm and excellent properties of electrical necking between nanoporous TiO2 and ITiO transparent electrode. This paper presents the effect of sputtering processes on the structural, electrical and optical properties of ITiO thin film deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering. The effect of doping concentration of Ti on the chemical compounds and C axis-orientation properties of were mainly studied experimentally. The morphology and electrical properties were greatly influenced by deposition processes, especially by the doping concentration of Ti. The $3.8{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ of minimum volume resistivity were obtained under the experimental conditions of gas pressure 7mTorr, substrate temperature $300^{\circ}C$, and 2.5% of Ti doping concentration.

• 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.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.83-86
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• 2010

The transparent electrode properties of ITO films deposited by RF magnetron sputtering with process pressure were investigated. The ITO thin films was deposited on a glass substrate using a target with 3in diameter sintered at a ratio of $In_2O_3$ : $SnO_2$ (9 : 1). 200-nm-thick ITO thin films were manufactured by various process pressures ($2.0{\times}10^{-2}$, $7.0{\times}10^{-3}$ and $2.0{\times}10^{-3}$ Torr). The optical transmittance and resistivity of the deposited ITO thin films showed a relatively satisfactory result under $10^{-2}$ Torr. For high process pressure, the optical transmittance was below 80%, while for low process pressure, the optical transmittance was above 85%. As a result of of mobility, resistivity and carrier concentration by Hall measurement, we obtained satisfactory properties to apply into a transparent conducting thin film.