• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.863-867
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• 2008

In this paper, to increase the light current efficiency of photodiode, we fabricated aluminum-doped zinc oxide(AZO) thin films by RF magnetron sputtering. AZO thin films were deposited at low temperature of 100 $^{\circ}C$ and different RF powers of 50, 100, 150 and 200 W due to selective process technology. Then the AZO thin films were annealed at 400 $^{\circ}C$ for 1 hr in vacuum ambient to increase crystalline. The lowest resistivity of 1.35 ${\times}$ $10^{-3}$ ${\Omega}cm$ and a high transmittance over 90 % were obtained under the conditions of 3 mTorr, 100 'c and 150 W. The optimized AZO thin films were deposited as anti-reflection coating on PN junction of silicon photodiode. It was confirmed by the result of $V_r-I_{ph}$ curve that the efficiency of photodiode with AZO thin film was enhanced 17 % more than commercial photodiode.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.577-582
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• 2013

AZO (aluminum-doped zinc oxide) is one of the best candidate materials to replace ITO (indium tin oxide) for TCOs (transparent conductive oxides) used in flat panel displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic solar cells (OSCs). In the present study, to apply an AZO thin film to the transparent electrode of an organic solar cell, a low-temperature selective atomic layer deposition (ALD) process was adopted to deposit an AZO thin film on a flexible poly-ethylene-naphthalate (PEN) substrate. The reactive gases for the ALD process were di-ethyl-zinc (DEZ) and tri-methyl-aluminum (TMA) as precursors and H2O as an oxidant. The structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of the AZO thin film were evaluated. From the measured results of the electrical and optical characteristics of the AZO thin films deposited on the PEN substrates by ALD, it was shown that the AZO thin film appeared to be comparable to a commercially used ITO thin film, which confirmed the feasibility of AZO as a TCO for flexible organic solar cells in the near future.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.116-125
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• 2018

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) is a commonly used material for the front contact layer of chalcopyrite $CuInGaSe_2$ (CIGS) based thin film solar cells since it satisfies the requisite optical and electrical properties with low cost and abundant elemental availability. Low-resistivity and high-transmission front contacts have been developed for high-performance CIGS solar cells, and nearly meet the required performance. However, the durability of the cell especially for the corrosion resistance of AZO films has not been studied intensively. In this work, AZO films were prepared on Corning glass 7059 substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering depending on the hydrogen content. The electrical and optical properties and electrochemical corrosion resistance of the AZO films were evaluated as a function of the hydrogen content. With increasing hydrogen content to 6 wt%, the crystallinity, crystal size, and surface roughness of the films increased, and the resistivity decreased with increased carrier concentration, Hall mobility, oxygen vacancies, and $Zn(OH)_2$ binding on the AZO surface. At a hydrogen content of 6 wt%, the corrosion resistance was also relatively high with less columnar morphology, shallow pore channels, and lower grain boundary angles.

• 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.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.07b
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• pp.1542-1545
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• 2005

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films have been deposited on corning 1737 glass by DC magnetron sputter. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the films were investigated as a function of various substrate temperatures. AZO thin films were fabricated by dc magnetron sputtering with AZO ceramic target $(Al_2O_3: 2wt %)$. The obtained films were poly crystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and preferentially oriented in the (002) crystallographic direction. The lowest resistivity is $6.0{\times}10^{-4}$ Ocm with the carrier concentration of $2.694{\times}10^{20}\;cm^{-3}$ and Hall mobility of $20.426cm^2/Vs$. The average transmittance in the visible range was above 90%.

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

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1235-1241
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• 2012

Aluminium (Al)-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films with different Al concentrations were prepared by the solgel spin-coating method. Optical parameters such as the optical band gap, absorption coefficient, refractive index, dispersion parameter, and optical conductivity were studied in order to investigate the effects of the Al concentration on the optical properties of AZO thin films. The dispersion energy, single-oscillator energy, average oscillator wavelength, average oscillator strength, and refractive index at infinite wavelength of the AZO thin films were found to be affected by Al incorporation. The optical conductivity of the AZO thin films also increases with increasing photon energy.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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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.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.107-112
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• 2007

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) films were deposited on non-alkali glass substrate by DC magnetron sputtering with 3 types of AZO targets (doped with 1.0 wt%, 2.0 wt%, 3.0 wt% $Al_2O_3$). Electrical, optical properties and microstructure of AZO films have been investigated by Hall effect measurements, UV/VIS/NIR spectrophotometer, and XRD, respectively. Crystallinity of AZO films increased with increasing substrate temperature ($T_s$) and doping ratio of Al. Resistivity and optical transmittance in visible light were $8.8{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ and above 85%, respectively, for the AZO film deposited using AZO target (doped with 3.0 wt% $Al_2O_3$) at $T_s$ of $300^{\circ}C$. On the other hand, transmittance of AZO films in near-infrared region decreased with increasing $T_s$ and doping ratio of Al, which could be attributed to the increase of carrier density.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.444-445
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• 2007

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) films are attractive materials as transparent conductive electrode because they are inexpensive, nontoxic and abundant element compared with indium tin oxide (ITO). AZO films have been deposited on glass (coming 1737) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering system. An ultrathin layer of nickel oxide (NiO) was deposited on the AZO anode to enhance the hole injections in organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). The current density-voltage and luminescence-voltage properties of devices were studied and compared with ITO device.