• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2012.02a
• /
• pp.209-209
• /
• 2012

High-efficient transparent conductive oxide (TCO) film-embedding Si heterojunction solar cells were fabricated. An additional doping was not applied for heterojunction solar cells due to the spontaneous junction formation between TCO films and an n-type Si substrate. Three different TCO coatings were formed by sputtering method for an Al-doped ZnO (AZO) film, an indium-tin-oxide (ITO) film and double stacks of ITO/AZO films. An improved crystalline ITO film was grown on an AZO template upon hetero-epitaxial growth. This double TCO films-embedding Si heterojunction solar cell provided significantly enhanced efficiency of 9.23% as compared to the single TCO/Si devices. The effective arrangement of TCO films (ITO/AZO) provides benefits of a lower front contact resistance and a smaller band offset to Si leading enhanced photovoltaic performances. This demonstrates a potential scheme of the effective TCO film-embedding heterojunction Si solar cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.27-27
• /
• 2008

The different concentration Indium doped ZnO:Al films were grown on glass substrates (Corning 1737) at $200^{\circ}C$ by pulsed laser deposition. The indium doping in AZO films shows the critical effect on the crystallinity, resistivity, and optical properties of the films. The AZO films doped with 0.3 atom % indium content exhibit the highest crystallinity, the lowest resistivity of $4.5\times10^{-4}\Omega$-cm, and the maximum transmittance of 93%. The resistivity of the indium doped-AZO films is strongly related with the crystallinity of the films. The carrier concentration in the indium doped-AZO films linearly increases with increasing indium concentration. The mobility of the AZO films with increasing indium concentration was reduced with an increase in carrier concentration and the decrease in mobility was attributed to the ionized impurity scattering mechanism. In an optical transmittance, the shift of the optical absorption edge to shorter wavelength strongly depends on the electronic carrier concentration in the films.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.85-89
• /
• 2018

In this study, functional transparent conducting layers were investigated for Si-based photoelectric applications. Double transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films were deposited on a Si substrate in the sequence of indium tin oxide (ITO) followed by aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO). First, we observed that the conductivity and transparency of AZO dominate the overall performance of the double TCO layers. Secondly, the double layered TCO film (consisting of AZO/ITO) deposited by sputtering was compared to a AZO-only film in terms of their optical and electrical properties. We prepared three different AZO films: ITO:3min/AZO:10min, ITO:5min/AZO:7min, and ITO:7min/AZO:4min. The results show that the optical properties (transmittance, absorbance, and reflection) can be controlled by the film composition. This may provide a significant pathway for the manipulation of the optical and electrical properties of photoelectric devices.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.191-196
• /
• 2010

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) films have been prepared on Coming 7059 glass substrates by r.f. magnetron sputtering method. A powder target instead of a conventional sintered ceramic target was used in order to improve the utilization efficiency of the target and reduce the cost of the film deposition process. The influence of sputter pressure on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of AZO films were studied. The AZO films had hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferred c-axis orientation, regardless of sputter pressure and target types. The crystallinity and degree of orientation was increased by increasing the sputter pressure. For higher sputtering pressures, a reduction of the resistivity was observed due to a increase on the mobility and the carrier concentration. The lowest resistivity of $6.5{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}-cm$ and the average transmittance of 80% can be obtained for films deposited at 15 mTorr.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.691-698
• /
• 2010

In this study Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films have been fabricated on Eagle 2000 glass substrates at various substrate temperature ($100{\sim}500^{\circ}C$) and working pressure (10 ~ 40 mTorr) by RF magnetron sputtering in order to investigate the structural, electrical, and optical properties of the AZO thin films. The obtained films were polycrystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and preferentially oriented in the (002) crystallographic direction. The AZO thin films, which were deposited at $T=300^{\circ}C$ for 10 mTorr, shows the highest (002) orientation, and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the (002) diffraction peak is $0.42^{\circ}$. The lowest resistivity ($2.64{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}cm$) with the highest cartier concentration ($5.29{\times}10^{20}\;cm^{-3}$) and a Hall mobility of ($6.23\;cm^2/Vs$) are obtained in the AZO thin films deposited at $T=300^{\circ}C$ for 10 mTorr. The optical transmittance in the visible region is approximately 80%, regardless of process conditions. The optical band-gap depends on the Al doping level as the substrate temperature increases and the working pressure decrease. The optical band-gap widening is proportional to cartier concentration due to the Burstein-Moss effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2016.02a
• /
• pp.345.2-345.2
• /
• 2016

Alumina (Al2O3) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) films (AZO) have been prepared from 2 wt.% Al2O3 doped ZnO target by DC magnetron sputtering at a 2 mTorr (0.27 Pa) chamber pressure in (15 sccm) argon ambient. We obtained films of various opto-electronic properties by variation of target angle from 32.5o to 72.5o. At lower target angle deposited films show higher values in optical gap, mobility of charge carrier, carrier concentration, crystallite grain size, transmission range of wavelength, which are favorable characteristics of AZO as a transparent conducting oxide (TCO). At higher target angle the sheet resistance, work function, surface roughness for the AZO films increases. Measured haze ratio of the films changed lower to higher and size of characteristic surface structure of as deposited film ranges from ~40 nm to ~300 nm. By a combination of low and high target angle we obtained a textured TCO film with high conductivity.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.194-197
• /
• 2013

We investigated the effect of etching time on the surface roughness, and electrical and optical properties of ZnO and 2 wt% Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films. The ZnO and AZO films were deposited on glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technique. The etching experiment was carried out using a solution of 5% HCl at room temperature. The surface roughness was characterized by Atomic Force Microscopy. The electrical property was measured by Hall measurement system and 4-point probe. The optical property was characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy. After the wet chemical etching, the surface textures were obtained on the surface of the ZnO and AZO films. With the increase of etching time, the surface roughness (RMS) of the films increased and the transmittance of the films was observed to decrease. For the AZO film, a low resistivity of $1.0{\times}10^{-3}\;{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ was achieved even after the etching.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.205-209
• /
• 2010

Transparent and conductive AZO films were deposited on the glass by using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering with intense electron radiation, simultaneously. After deposition, the effect of electron radiation energy on the optical and electrical properties of AZO was investigated. In XRD measurements, the films irradiated with intense electron beam show the larger grain size than that of the films prepared without electron radiation. Sheet resistance was also dependent on the electron radiation energy, while the optical transmittance in visible wavelength region was not affected seriously by electron radiation. X-.ray diffraction, UV-Vis spectrophotometer and four point probes were used to observe the crystallization, optical transmittance and sheet resistance, respectively.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.1067-1072
• /
• 2023

We prepared AZO (Al₂O₃ : 3 wt %) thin films according to the substrate temperature using the pulsed laser deposition method and the structural, electrical, and optical properties of the thin films were investigated. The AZO thin film deposited at 400℃ showed the best (002) orientation and the FWHM was 0.38°. As a result of the investigation of electrical properties, it was confirmed that the carrier concentration and mobility increased and the resistivity decreased as the substrate temperature increased. The average transmittance in the visible light region showed a high value of 85% or more regardless of the substrate temperature. The Burstein-Moss effect, in which the carrier concentration would increase with increasing substrate temperature thereby widening the energy band gap, was also observed. The resistivity and the figure of merit of the AZO thin film deposited at a substrate temperature of 400℃ were 6.77 × 10^-4 Ω·cm and 1.02 × 10⁴ Ω^-1·cm^-1 respectively, showing the best value.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.127.1-127.1
• /
• 2011

In this paper, ZnO:Al thin films with c-axis preferred orientation were prepared on Soda lime glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technique. AZO thin film were prepared in order to clarify optimum conditions for growth of the thin film depending upon process, and then by changing a number of deposition conditions and substrate temperature conditions variously, structural and electrical characteristics were measured. For the manufacture of the AZO were vapor-deposited in the named order. It is well-known that post-annealing is an important method to improve crystal quality. For the annealing process, the dislocation nd other defects arise in the material and adsorption/decomposition occurs. The XRD patterns of the AZO films deposited with grey theory prediction design, annealed in a vacuum ambient($2.0{\times}10-3$Torr)at temperatures of 200, 300, 400 and $500^{\circ}C$ for a period of 30min. The diffraction patterns of all the films show the AZO films had a hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferential orientation along the c-axis perpendicular to the substrate surface. As can be seen, the (002)peak intensities of the AZO films became more intense and sharper when the annealing temperature increased. On the other hand, When the annealing temperature was $500^{\circ}C$ the peak intensity decreased. The surface morphologies and surface toughness of films were examined by atomic force microscopy(AFM, XE-100, PSIA). Electrical resistivity, Gall mobility and carrier concentration were measured by Hall effect measuring system (HL5500PC, Accent optical Technology, USA). The optical absorption spectra of films in the ultraviolet-visibleinfrared( UV-Vis-IR) region were recorder by the UV spectrophotometer(U-3501, Hitachi, Japan). The resistivity, carrier concentration, and Hall mobility of ZnS deposited on glass substrate as a function of post-annealing.