• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2007.07a
• /
• pp.242-243
• /
• 2007

Highly transparent conducting aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were deposited on Corning glass substrate using an Nd:YAG pulsed laser deposition technology. AZO thin films deposited with 650nm thickness showed the best electrical properties of the electrical resistivity of $4.6{\times}10^{-4}[{\Omega}{\cdot}cm]$, a carrier concentration of $9.3{\times}10^{20}[cm^{-3}]$, and a carrier mobility of $31[cm^2/V{\cdot}s]$. Besides, the optical transmittance spectra in visible region (200-800nm) of AZO thin films show an high average transmittance over 90%.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.30 no.10
• /
• pp.558-565
• /
• 2020

AZO thin films are grown on a p-Si(111) substrate by RF magnetron sputtering. The characteristics of various thicknesses and heat treatment conditions are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Hall effect and room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurements. The substrate temperature and the RF power during growth are kept constant at 400 ℃ and 200 W, respectively. AZO films are grown with a preferred orientation along the c-axis. As the thickness and the heat treatment temperature increases, the length of the c-axis decreases as Al³⁺ ions of relatively small ion radius are substituted for Zn²⁺ ions. At room temperature, the PL spectrum is separated into an NBE emission peak around 3.2 eV and a violet regions peak around 2.95 eV with increasing thickness, and the PL emission peak of 300 nm is red-shifted with increasing annealing temperature. In the XPS measurement, the peak intensity of Al_2p and O_ll increases with increasing annealing temperature. The AZO thin film of 100 nm thickness shows values of 6.5 × 10¹⁹ cm^-3 of carrier concentration, 8.4 cm^-2/V·s of mobility and 1.2 × 10^-2 Ω·cm electrical resistivity. As the thickness of the thin film increases, the carrier concentration and the mobility increase, resulting in the decrease of resistivity. With the carrier concentration, mobility decreases when the heat treatment temperature increases more than 500 ℃.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.19-24
• /
• 2006

ZnO:Al(AZO) films prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on glass substrate and textured by post-deposition chemical etching were applied as front contact and back reflectors for ${\mu}c$-Si:H thin film solar cells. For the front transparent electrode contact, AZO films were prepared at various working pressures and substrate temperature and then were chemically etched in diluted HCl(1%). The front AZO films deposited at low working pressure(1 mTorr) and low temperature ($240^{\circ}C$) exhibited uniform and high transmittance ($\geq$80%) and excellent electrical properties. The solar cells were optimized in terms of optical and electrical properties to demonstrate a high short-circuit current.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.493-500
• /
• 1996

AZO transparent conducting thin films were fabricated by reactive DC magnetron sputtering method using Zn metla target containing 2 wt% of Al, and electrical and optical properties were investigated after heattreatment. Electrical resistivity was reduced 50% and had reached $1{\times}10^{-3}~3.5{\times}10^{-4}\;{\Omega}cm$ by heat treatment. In the case of oxide AZO films, the resistivity of $10^{3}\;{\Omega}cm$ was also decreased to $2{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}cm$ after heat treatment. The optical transmittance of AZO films deposited in the transition range was increased from 59.4 % to 77.4 % by $400^{\circ}C$, 30 min heat treatment.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.58-61
• /
• 2009

The electrical stability of ZnO: Al thin films deposited on glass substrate by the RF magnetron sputtering method have been modified by a hydrogen annealing treatment and $SiO_2$ protection layer. AZO thin films were deposited at room temperature and different RF powers of 50, 100, 150, and 200 W to optimize the AZO film growth condition. The lowest value of resistivity of $9.44{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ was obtained at 2 mtorr, room temperature, and a power level of 150 W. Then, the AZO thin films were annealed at $250-400^{\circ}C$ for 1 h in hydrogen ambient. The minimum resistivity obtained was $8.32{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ as-annealed at $300^{\circ}C$. The electrical properties were enhanced by the hydrogen annealing treatment. After a 72 h damp-heat treatment in harsh conditions of a water steam at $110^{\circ}C$ for four representative samples, a degradation of electrical properties was observed. The sample of hydrogen-annealed AZO thin films with $SiO_2$ protection layer showed a slight degradation ratio(17%) of electrical properties and a preferable transmittance of 90%. The electrical stability of AZO thin films had been modified by hydrogen annealing treatment and $SiO_2$ protection layer.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.328-333
• /
• 2011

The influence of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films degraded under high temperature and damp heat on the performance deterioration of Cu(In,Ga)$Se_2$ (CIGS) solar cells was investigated. CIGS solar cells with AZO/CdS/CIGS/Mo structure were prepared on glass substrate and exposed to high temperature ($85^{\circ}C$) and damp heat ($85^{\circ}C$/85% RH) for 1000 h. As-prepared CIGS solar cells had 64.91% in fill factor (FF) and 12.04% in conversion efficiency. After exposed to high temperature, CIGS solar cell had 59.14% in FF and 9.78% in efficiency, while after exposed to damp heat, it had 54.00% in FF and 8.78% in efficiency. AZO thin films in the deteriorated CIGS solar cells showed increases in resistivity up to 3.1 times and 4.4 times compared to their initial resistivity after 1000 h of high temperature and damp heat exposure, respectively. These results can be explained by the decreases in carrier concentration and mobility due to diffusion or adsorption of oxygen and moisture in AZO thin films. It can be inferred that decreases in FF and conversion efficiency were caused by an increase in series resistance, which resulted from an increase in resistivity of AZO thin films degraded under high temperature and damp heat.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.32 no.7
• /
• pp.799-808
• /
• 1995

Transparent conductive films of aluminium doped zinc oxide (AZO) have been prepared by using the DC magnetron sputtering with the ZnO : Al (Al2O3 2 wt%) oxide target oriented to c-axis. Electrical and optical properties depended upon the O2/Ar gas ratio. The optical transmittance and sheet resistance of the AZO coated glass was 60~65% and 75Ω/$\square$, respectively at the O2/Ar gas ratio of 0. With the increase of the oxygen partial pressure to 2.0$\times$10-2, they were increased to the values of 81% and 1kΩ/$\square$, respectively. The films with the resistivities of 1.2~1.4$\times$10-3 Ω.cm, mobilities of 11~13 $\textrm{cm}^2$/V.sec and carrier concentrations of 3.5$\times$1020~4.0$\times$1020/㎤ were produced at the optimum O2/Ar gas ratio, which was 0.5$\times$10-2~1.0$\times$10-2. According to XRD analysis, the films have only one peak corresponding to the (002) plane, which indicates that there is a strong preferred orientation of the films. The grain size of ZnO films were calculated to 200~320 $\AA$, which was increased with the O2/Ar gas ratio and Ar gas flowrate.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.121.2-121.2
• /
• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2003.07b
• /
• pp.880-883
• /
• 2003

ZnO thin films for Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator(FBAR) were prepared by FTS (Facing Target Sputtering) system. The FTS methode enable to generate high density plasma, and it has a high deposition rate at 1mTorr pressure. Therefore, the ZnO thin films were deposited on $AZO/SiO_2/Si$ substrates with oxygen gas flow rate, and the other sputtering conditions were fixed such as a sputtering current of 0.8A, a substrate temperature at room temperature. AZO bottom electrode were deposited on $SiO_2/Si$ substrate and by Zn:Al(Al:2wt%) metal target. ZnO thin film thickness and the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO thin film were evaluated by ${\alpha}-step$ and XRD.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2005.07c
• /
• pp.1859-1861
• /
• 2005

The ZnO:Al thin films were prepared on glass by Facing Target Sputtering (FTS) system. We investigated electrical, optical, and structural properties of AZO thin film with sputtering current $0.1[A]{\sim}0.6[A]$. We obtained the lowest resistivity $2.3{\times}10^{-4}[{\Omega}-cm]$ at sputtering current 0.6[A] from the 4-point probe and the strong (002) peak at sputtering current 0.3[A] from the X-ray Diffractometer (XRD ). The optical transmittance of AZO thin films show a very high transmittance of $80{\sim}95%$ in the visible range and exhibit the absorption edge of about 350nm.