• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.461-465
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• 2011

An aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) film for front contacts of thin film solar cells, in this work, were deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering, and then etched in diluted hydrochloric acid solution for different times. Effects of surface texturing on the electro-optical properties of AZO films were investigated. Also, to clarify the light trapping of textured AZO film, amorphous silicon thin film solar cells were fabricated on the textured AZO/glass substrate and the performance of solar cells were studied. After texturing, the spectral haze at the visible range of 400 ~750 nm increased substantially with the etching time, without a change in the resistivity. The conversion efficiency of amorphous Si solar cells with textured AZO film as a front electrode was improved by the increase of short-circuit current density ($J_{sc}$), compared to cell with flat AZO films.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.17 no.4
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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.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.163-167
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• 2013

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films have been prepared on the glass substrates (Corning 1737) by sol-gel dip-coating method employing zinc acetate and aluminum chloride hexahydrate for the transparent conducting oxide (TCO) applications. 1 at% Al was doped to the ZnO thin films. The effects of post-heating temperature on the crystallization, optical and electrical properties of the AZO films have been investigated. Experimental results showed that post-heating temperature affected the microstructure, electrical resistance, and optical transmittance of the AZO films. From the X-ray diffraction analysis, all films have hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure. Optical transmittance spectra of the AZO films exhibited transmittance higher than about 80% within the visible wavelength region and the optical direct band gap ($E_g$) of these films was increased with increasing post-heating temperature. A minimum resistivity of $2.5{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$ was observed at $650^{\circ}C$.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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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.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.480-492
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• 1996

AZO (Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide) transparent conducting thin films were fabricated by reactive DC mangnetron sputtering method using zinc target containing 2 wt% of Al. Transition range with optimum transmittance and conductivity was obtained by contrlling partial pressure of reactive oxygen gas. Sputtering condition for this transition range could be kept stable by regulating the target voltage. According to XRD analysis, there was only one peak for (002) plane in AZO films and the films deposited in transition range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.699-700
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• 2013

Aluminum and hydrogen doped zinc oxide (AZHO) films were prepared by r.f. magnetron sputtering. The structural, electrical, and optical properties of the AHZO films were investigated in terms of the annealing conditions to study the thermal stability. The XRD measurements revealed that the degree of c-axis orientation was decreased and the crystallintiy of the films was deteriorated by the heat treatment. The electrical resistivity was significantly increased when the films were annealed at higher temperature. Although the optical transmittance of AHZO films didn't highly changed by heat treatment, the optical band gap was reduced, regardless of annealing temperature and duration. The thermal stability of AHZO films was worse compared to AZO films.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.1149-1150
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• 2015

In this study, hafnium was doped into aluminum zinc oxide (AZO) films were deposited on glass and Si substrates at room temperature via co-sputtering by varying the electric power applied to the Hf target. The properties of deposited Hf-doped AZO films, such as crystalline structure, optical transmittance, and band gap were analyzed using various methods such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV/visible spectrophotometer. The experimental results confirmed that the abovementioned properties of Hf-AZO films strongly depended on the Hf sputtering power.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.56 no.9
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• pp.1596-1601
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• 2007

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films were deposited on coming glass substrates using an Nd:YAG pulsed laser deposition technology. The AZO thin films were deposited with various growth conditions such as the substrate temperature and oxygen partial pressure. In this work, we used various measurement technologies in order to investigate the electrical, structural, and optical properties of the AZO thin films. Among the AZO thin films, the one prepared at the substrate temperature of $300^{\circ}C$ and oxygen partial pressure of 5 mTorr showed the best properties of an electrical resistivity of $4.63{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, a carrier concentration of $9.25{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$, and a carrier mobility of $31.33cm^2/V{\cdot}s$. All the AZO thin films showed an high average optical transmittance over 90 % in visible region.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.207-212
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• 2014

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) films were deposited on SiOC/Si wafer by an RF-magnetron sputtering system, by varying the deposition parameters of radio frequency power from 50 to 200 W. To assess the correlation of the optical properties between the substrate and AZO thin film, photoluminescence was measured, and the origin of deep level emission of AZO thin films grown on SiOC/Si wafer was studied. AZO formed on SiOC/Si substrates exhibited ultraviolet emission due to exciton recombination, and the visible emission was associated with intrinsic and extrinsic defects. For the AZO thin film deposited on SiOC at low RF-power, the deep level emission near the UV region is attributed to an increase of the variations of defects related to the AZO and SiOC layers. The applied RF-power influenced an energy gap of localized trap state produced from the defects, and the gap increased at low RF power due to the formation of new defects across the AZO layer caused by lattice mismatch of the AZO and SiOC films. The optical properties of AZO films on amorphous SiOC compared with those of AZO film on Si were considerably improved by reducing the roughness of the surface with low surface ionization energy, and by solving the problem of structural mismatch with the AZO film and Si wafer.