• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.242-248
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• 2008

The structural, optical and electrical properties of ZnO films doped with 1.5 at% of 3A materials(B, Al, Ga, In) were studied by sol-gel process. The films were found to be c-axis (002) oriented hexagonal structure on glass substrate, when post heated at 500 $^{\circ}C$. The surface of the films showed a uniform and nano size microstructure and the crystalline size of doped films decreased. The lattice constants of ZnO:B/Al/Ga increased than that of ZnO, while ZnO:In decreased. All the films were highly transparent(above 90 %) in the visible region. The energy gaps of ZnO:B/Al/Ga were increased a little, but that of ZnO:In was not changed. The resistivities of ZnO:Al/Ga/In were less than 0.1 $\Omega$cm. All the films showed a semiconductor properties in the light or temperature, however ZnO:In was less sensitive to it. A figure of merit of ZnO:In had the highest value of 0.025 $\Omega^{-1}$ in all samples.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.35-39
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• 2007

ITO(Indium Tin Oxide) is the most attractive TCO(Transparent Conducting Oxide) materials for LCD, PDP, OLEDs and solar cell, because of their high optical transparency and electrical conductivity. However due to the shortage of indium resource, hard processing at low temperature, and decrease of optical property during hydrogen plasma treatment, their applications to the display industries are limited. Thus, recently the Al-doped ZnO(AZO) has been studied to substitute ITO. In this study, we have investigated the effect of different substrate temperature(RT, $150^{\circ}C$, $225^{\circ}C$, $300^{\circ}C$) and working pressure(10 mTorr, 20 mTorr, 30 mTorr, 80 mTorr) on the characteristics of AZO(2 wt.% Al, 98 wt.% ZnO) films deposited by RF-magnetron sputtering. We have obtained AZO thin films deposited at low temperature and all the deposited AZO thin films are grown as colunmar. The average transmittance in the visible wavelength region is over 80% for all the films and transmittance improved with increasing substrate temperature. Electrical properties of the AZO films improved with increasing substrate temperature.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.142-146
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• 2008

Trivalent ions(Ga, Al, In) doped ZnO films were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering on non-alkali glass substrate at substrate temperature of $300^{\circ}C$. We used the different three types of high density($95%{\sim}$) ceramic sintered disks(doped with $Ga_2O_3$; 6.65 wt%, $Al_2O_3$; 3.0 wt%, $In_2O_3$; 9.54 wt%). This study examined the effect of different dopants(Ga, Al, In) on the electrical, structural, and optical properties of the films. The lowest resistivity of $5.14{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ and the highest optical band gap of 3.74 eV were obtained by Ga doped ZnO(GZO) film. All the films had a preferred orientation along the(002) direction, indicating that the growth orientation has a c-axis perpendicular to the substrate surface. The average transmittance of the films was more than 85% in the visible range.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.592-598
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• 1998

AZO(Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide) thin films were fabricated by reactive DC magnetron sputtering method using zinc metal target (Al 2%) and zinc oxide target ($Al_2O_3\;2%$) respectively. The intermediate condition with optimum transmittance and conductivity was obtained by controlling the sputtering parameters. Oxygen gas ratio for this condition was $0.5{\times}10^{-2}~1.0{\times}10^{-2}$ in oxide target and. In case of metal target, this optimum oxygen gas ratio at the applied power of 0.6 kW and 1.0 kW was 0.215~0.227 and 0.305~0.315, respectively. The resistivity of AZO film deposited was obtained $1.2~1.4{\times}10^{-3} {\Omega}{\cdot}$cm as deposited state regardless of target species.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.97-102
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• 2013

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were prepared by dc magnetron sputtering at room temperature and the effect of heat treatment on the structural, electrical and optical properties of the films were examined. As the annealing temperature and time increased, the resistivity decreased and the transmittance improved. All AZO films had c-axis oriented (002) plane of ZnO, regardless of the annealing process employed. As the annealing temperature and time increased, the crystallinity of AZO thin films increased due to the formation of a new ZnO phase in which Al was substituted for Zn. However, at the high annealing temperature of $400^{\circ}C$, the resistivity of the films increased via separation of Zn and Al from ZnO phase due to their low melting points. X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron micrograph and Hall effect measurement confirmed the formation of uniformly distributed new grains of ZnO substituted with Al. The variation of Al contents in AZO films was shown to be the primary factor for the changes in resistivity and carrier concentration of the films.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.42.2-42.2
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• 2010

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are of significant importance for their applications in various devices, such as light-emitting diodes, thin-film solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes, liquid crystal displays, and so on. In order for TCOs to contribute to the performance improvement of these devices, TCOs should have high transmittance and good electrical properties simultaneously. Sn-doped $In_2O_3$ (ITO) is the most commonly used TCO. However, indium is toxic and scarce in nature. Thus, ZnO has attracted a lot of attention because of the possibility for replacing ITO. In particular, group III impurity-doped ZnO showed the optoelectronic properties comparable to those of ITO electrodes. Al-doped ZnO exhibited the best performance among various doped ZnO films because of the high substitutional doping efficiency. However, in order for the Al-doped ZnO to replace ITO in electronic devices, their electrical and optical properties should further significantly be improved. In this connection, different ways such as a variation of deposition conditions, different deposition techniques, and post-deposition annealing processes have been investigated so far. Among the deposition methods, RF magnetron sputtering has been extensively used because of the easiness in controlling deposition parameters and its fast deposition rate. In addition, when combined with post-deposition annealing in a reducing ambient, the optoelectronic properties of Al-doped ZnO films were found to be further improved. In this presentation, we deposited Al-doped ZnO (ZnO:$Al_2O_3$ = 98:2 wt%) thin films on the glass and sapphire substrates using RF magnetron sputtering as a function of substrate temperature. In addition, the ZnO samples were annealed in different conditions, e.g., rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ ambient for 1 min, tube-furnace annealing at $500^{\circ}C$ in $N_2:H_2$=9:1 gas flow for 1 hour, or RTA combined with tube-furnace annealing. It is found that the mobilities and carrier concentrations of the samples are dependent on growth temperature followed by one of three subsequent post-deposition annealing conditions.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.43-46
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• 2017

Aluminum-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) with respect to the Al doping concentrations. In order to explain the chemical stability and electrical properties of the AZO thin films after hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$) solution immersion treatment at room temperature, we investigated correlations between the electrical resistivity and the electronic structure, such as chemical bonding state, conduction band, band edge state below conduction band, and band alignment. Al-doped at ~ 10 at % showed not only a dramatic improvement of the electrical resistivity but also excellent chemical stability, both of which are strongly associated with changes of chemical bonding states and band edge states below the conduction band.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.98-104
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• 2006

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films were deposited on the plastic substrate by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted DC magnetron sputtering. The AZO films were produced by sputtering a metallic target (Zn/Al) in a mixture of argon and oxygen gases. AZO films with an electrical resistivity of ${\sim}10^3\;{\Omega}cm$ and an optical transmittance of 80% were obtained even at a low deposition temperature. In-situ process control methods were used to obtain stable deposition conditions in the transition region without any hysteresis effect. The target voltage was controlled either at a constant DC power. It was found that the ratio of the zinc to oxygen emission intensity, I (O 777)/I (Zn 481) decreased with increasing the target voltage in the transition region. The $Ar/O_2$ plasma treatment improve the adhesion strength between the polycarbonate substrate and AZO films.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.122-127
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• 2009

Ga/Al doped ZnO (GAZO) thin films were prepared on non-alkali glass substrate by co-sputtering system using two DC cathodes equipped with AZO ($Al_2O_3$:2.0 wt%) target and GZO ($Ga_2O_3$:6.65 wt%) target. This study examined the influence of Al/Ga concentration and substrate temperature on the electrical, structural and optical properties of GAZO films. The lowest resistivity $1.95{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$ was obtained at room temperature. With increasing substrate temperature, resistivity of GAZO film decreased to a minimum value of $7.47{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ at below $300^{\circ}C$. Furthermore, when 0.05% $H_2$ gas was introduced, resistivity of GAZO film decreased to $6.69{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$. All the films had a preferred orientation along the (002) direction, indicating that the deposited films have hexagonal wurtzite structure formed by the textured growth along the c-axis. The average transmittance of the films was more than 85% in the visible light range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.106-106
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• 2009

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were grown on glass substrates by co-sputtering at room temperature. We made ZnO and Al target and ZnO:Al film is deposited with sputter which has two RF gun source. The Al content was controlled by varying Al RF power and effect of Al contents on the properties of ZnO:Al film was investigated. Crystallinity and orientation of the ZnO:Al films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface morphology of the ZnO:Al films was observed by atomic force microscope. Electrical properties of the ZnO:Al films were measured at room temperature by van der Pauw method and hall measurement. Optrical properties of ZnO:Al films were measured by UV-vis-NIR spectrometer.