• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.30 no.6
• /
• pp.401-405
• /
• 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 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.277-283
• /
• 2009

In this paper, aluminum doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) thin films on plastic substrate such as poly carbonate (PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering method for flexible solar cell applications. Effects of the sputter pressure on the structural, electrical and optical properties were investigated. The crystallinity and the degree of the (002) orientation were deteriorated with increasing the sputter pressure. When the sputter pressure was higher, the conductivity of ZnO:Al films was improved because of the high carrier concentration and the Hall mobility. High quality ZnO:Al films with resistivity as low as $1.9{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$ and the optical transmittance over 80 % in the visible region have been obtained on PC substrate at 2 mTorr.

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

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.20 no.7
• /
• pp.351-355
• /
• 2010

Transparent conducting aluminum-doped ZnO thin films were deposited using a sol-gel process. In this study, the important deposition parameters were investigated thoroughly to determine the appropriate procedures to grow large area thin films with low resistivity and high transparency at low cost for device applications. The doping concentration of aluminum was adjusted in a range from 1 to 4 mol% by controlling the precursor concentration. The annealing temperatures for the pre-heat treatment and post-heat treatment was $250^{\circ}C$ and 400-$600^{\circ}C$, respectively. The SEM images show that Al doped and undoped ZnO films were quite uniform and compact. The XRD pattern shows that the Al doped ZnO film has poorer crystallinity than the undoped films. The crystal quality of Al doped ZnO films was improved with an increase of the annealing temperature to $600^{\circ}C$. Although the structure of the aluminum doped ZnO films did not have a preferred orientation along the (002) plane, these films had high transmittance (> 87%) in the visible region. The absorption edge was observed at approximately 370 nm, and the absorption wavelength showed a blue-shift with increasing doping concentration. The ZnO films annealed at $500^{\circ}C$ showed the lowest resistivity at 1 mol% Al doping.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2005.07b
• /
• pp.1542-1545
• /
• 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%.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.346-350
• /
• 2006

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were grown on type of glass#1737 substrates by DC magnetron sputtering. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the films were investigated as a function of various plasma discharge power. The obtained films were polycrystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and preferentially oriented in the (002) crystallographic direction. The lowest resistivity was $6.0{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}cm$ with the carrier concentration of $2.69{\times}10^{20}cm^{-3}$ and Hall mobility of 20.43 $cm^2/Vs$. The average transmittance in the visible range was above 90%.

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

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

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2009.02a
• /
• pp.237.2-237.2
• /
• 2009

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.1555-1562
• /
• 2015

Metal oxide semiconductors have been applied in several areas, such as solar cells, sensor, optical elements and displays, due to the high surface area, unique electrical and optical characteristics. Zinc oxide among the metal oxide has excellent physicochemical properties. Zinc oxide is a n-type semiconductor with a wide direct transition band gap of 3.37 eV at room temperature and large exciton binding energy of 60 meV. Cation-doped zinc oxide studies were conducted to complement the electrical and optical characteristics. In this paper, Al-doped ZnO was synthesized by hydrothermal synthesis using microwaves. ZnO was synthesized by adjusting the precursor ratio and using different dopants. The optimal ZnO synthesis conditions for crystal shape and optical properties were determined. The optical properties of aluminum doped zinc oxide were then examined by SEM, XRD, PL, UV-vis absorbance spectrum, and EDS.