• 한국전기전자재료학회논문지
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• 제25권7호
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• pp.543-551
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• 2012

In this study, transparent conducting Al-doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) films with a thickness of 150 nm were prepared on corning glass substrate by the RF magnetron sputtering with using a Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO), ($Al_2O_3$: 2 wt%) target at room temperature. This study investigated the effect of rapid thermal annealing temperature and oxygen ambient on structural, electrical and optical properties of Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films. The films were annealed at temperatures ranging from 400 to $700^{\circ}C$ by using Rapid thermal equipment in oxygen ambient. The effect of RTA treatment on the structural properties were studied by x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. It is observed that the Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin film annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ at 5 minute oxygen ambient gas reveals the strongest XRD emission intensity and narrowest full width at half maximum among the temperature studied. The enhanced UV emission from the film annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ at 5 minute oxygen ambient gas is attributed to the improved crystalline quality of Al-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin film due to the effective relaxation of residual compressive stress and achieving maximum grain size.

• 한국전기전자재료학회논문지
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• 제30권6호
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• pp.401-405
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• 2017

Because silicon thin film solar cells have a high absorption coefficient in visible light, they can absorb 90% of the solar spectrum in a $1-{\mu}m$-thick layer. Silicon thin film solar cells also have high transparency and are lightweight. Therefore, they can be used for building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. However, the contact electrode needs to be replaced for fabricating silicon thin film solar cells in BIPV systems, because most of the silicon thin film solar cells use metal electrodes that have a high reflectivity and low transmittance. In this study, we replace the conventional aluminum top electrode with a transparent aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) electrode, the band level of which matches well with that of the intrinsic layer of the silicon thin film solar cell and has high transmittance. We show that the AZO effectively replaces the top metal electrode and the bottom fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate without a noticeable degradation of the photovoltaic characteristics.

• 한국전자통신학회논문지
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• 제18권6호
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• pp.1067-1072
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• 2023

본 연구에서는 본 연구에서는 펄스 레이저 증착법으로 기판온도에 따른 AZO(Al₂O₃ : 3 wt %)박막을 제작하여, 구조적 특성과 전기적 및 광학적 특성을 조사하였다. 기판온도 400℃ 에서 증착한 AZO박막에서 가장 우수한 (002) 배향성을 나타내었으며, 이때의 반가폭은 0.42° 였다. 전기적 특성을 조사한 결과, 기판온도가 상승함에 따라 캐리어 농도와 이동도는 증가하였고 비저항은 감소하였다. 가시광 영역에서의 평균 투과도는 기판온도에 상관없이 85% 이상의 높은 값을 나타내었고, 기판온도에 상승함에 따라 캐리어 농도가 증가하고 이로 인해 에너지 밴드갭이 넓어지는 Burstein-Moss효과도 관찰할 수 있었다. 기판온도 400℃ 에서 증착한 AZO박막의 비저항과 재료평가지수는 각각 6.77 × 10^-4 Ω·cm 과 1.02 × 10⁴ Ω^-1·cm^-1 로 가장 우수한 값을 나타내었다.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2013년도 제44회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.688-688
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• 2013

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films have attracted a lot of attention as a cheap transparent conducting oxide (TCO) material that can replace the expensive Sn-doped In2O3. In particular, AZO thin films are widely used as a window layer of chalcogenide-based thin film solar cells such as Cu(In,Ga)Se2 and Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS). Mostly important requirements for the window layer material of the thin film solar cells are the high transparency and the low sheet resistance, because they influence the light absorption by the activelayer and the electron collection from the active layer, respectively. In this study, we prepared the AZO thin films by RF magnetron sputtering using a ZnO/Al2O3 (98：2wt%) ceramic target, and the effect of the sputtering condition such as the working pressure, RF power, and the working distance on the optical, electrical, and crystallographic properties of the AZO thin films was investigated. The AZO thin films with optimized properties were used as a window layer of CZTS thin film solar cells. The CZTS active layers were prepared by the electrochemical deposition and the subsequent sulfurization process, which is also one of the cost-effective synthetic approaches. In addition, the solar cell properties of the CZTS thin film solar cells, such as the photocurrent density-voltage (J-V) characteristics and the external quantum efficiency (EQE) were investigated.

• 한국재료학회지
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• 제20권12호
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• pp.629-635
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• 2010

Abstract In this study characteristics of Al-doped ZnO thin film by HIPIMS (High power impulse sputtering) are discussed. Deposition speed of HIPIMS with conventional balanced magnetic field is measured at about 3 nm/min, which is 30% of that of conventional RF sputtering process with the same working pressure. To generate additional magnetic flux and increase sputtering speed, electromagnetic coil is mounted at the back side of target. Under unbalanced magnetic flux from electromagnet with 1.5A coil current, deposition speed of AZO thin film is increased from 3 nm/min to 4.4 nm/min. This new value originates from the decline of particles near target surface due to the local magnetic flux going toward substrate from electromagnet. AZO film sputtered by HIPIMS process shows very smooth and dense film surface for which surface roughness is measured from 0.4 nm to 1 nm. There are no voids or defects in morphology of AZO films with varying of magnetic field. When coil current is increased from 0A to 1A, transmittance of AZO thin film decreases from 80% to 77%. Specific resistance is measured at about $2.9{\times}10-2\Omega{\cdot}cm$. AZO film shows C-axis oriented structure and its grain size is calculated at about 5.3 nm, which is lower than grain size in conventional sputtering.

• 한국반도체및디스플레이장비학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국반도체및디스플레이장비학회 2006년도 추계학술대회 발표 논문집
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• pp.60-63
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• 2006

Preparing AZO thin films on the polymer substrate has been widely studied Because AZO thin film has the potential applications. In this study, we prepared AZO thin films on polyethersulfon (PES) at room temperature. The AZO thin films were prepared at $O_2$ gas flow rate of 0.05 and sputtering power of 100W with different film thickness by facing targets sputtering method. The electrical, optical and crystallographic properties of AZO thin films were measured by Hall Effect measurement system, UV/VIS spectrometer, SEM and XRD. From the results, we obtained AZO thin films with a low resistivity, a transmittance of over 80% and c-axis preferred orientation.

• 한국전기전자재료학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전기전자재료학회 2007년도 하계학술대회 논문집 Vol.8
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• pp.385-386
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• 2007

We prepared the Al doped ZnO coating Ag multilayer thin films on glass without substrate heating using FTS system. The structure of multilayer thin films has Al doped ZnO/Ag/Al doped ZnO(AZO/Ag/AZO). The thickness of top and bottom AZO thin films were fixed to 50 nm, respectively and controlled the thickness of Ag thin films with deposition time. As-doped multilayer thin films were prepared at 1mTorr and input power (DC) of 100W at room temperature. To investigate the film properties, we employed four-point probe, UVNIS spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Hall Effect measurement system and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM).

• 열처리공학회지
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• 제29권6호
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• pp.272-276
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• 2016

Al doped ZnO (AZO) single layer and AZO/Ag bi-layered films were deposited on the glass substrates by radio frequency and direct current magnetron sputtering and then the effect of Ag buffer layer on the electrical and optical properties of the films was investigated. The thicknesses of AZO upper layer was kept as 100 nm, while Ag buffer layer was varied from 5 to 15 nm. The observed results mean that opto-electrical properties of the AZO films is influenced with Ag buffer layer and AZO film with 10 nm thick Ag buffer layer show the higher opto-electrical performance than that of the AZO single layer film prepared in this study.

• 반도체디스플레이기술학회지
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• 제17권4호
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• pp.32-36
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• 2018

For various oxygen($O_2$) to argon(Ar) gas ratio, aluminum-doped zinc oxide(AZO) films were deposited for 3 min at different duty ratio by changing reverse pulse times. As the duty ratio increased, the thickness of the AZO film decreased and the sheet resistance increased. It can be concluded that When sputtering AZO Thin film, oxygen interfered with sputtering. When the reverse time was increased, the thickness of AZO was proportional to the real sputtering time and decreased. From the optical transmittance and sheet resistance, it was possible to obtain a higher figure of merits of AZO at a lower reverse pulse time. Even at the short reversed pulse time, it can be concluded that the accumulated charges on the AZO target are completely cleared. At a lower reverse pulse time, pulsed-DC sputtering of AZO is expected to be used instead of DC sputtering in the deposition of transparent conductive oxide(TCO) films without any degradation in thickness and structural/electrical characteristics.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2011년도 춘계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.121.2-121.2
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• 2011

Aluminum-doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) is considered as an excellent candidate to replace Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), which is widely used as transparent conductive oxide (TCO) for electronic devices such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs), organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic solar cells (OSCs). In the present study, AZO thin film was applied to the transparent electrode of a channel-shaped flexible organic solar cell using a low-temperature selective-area atomic layer deposition (ALD) process. AZO thin films were deposited on Poly-Ethylene-Naphthalate (PEN) substrates with Di-Ethyl-Zinc (DEZ) and Tri-Methyl-Aluminum (TMA) as precursors and $H_2O$ as an oxidant for the atomic layer deposition at the deposition temperature of $130^{\circ}C$. The pulse time of TMA, DEZ and $H_2O$, and purge time were 0.1 second and 20 second, respectively. The electrical and optical properties of the AZO films were characterized as a function of film thickness. The 300 nm-thick AZO film grown on a PEN substrate exhibited sheet resistance of $87{\Omega}$/square and optical transmittance of 84.3% at a wavelength between 400 and 800 nm.