• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.252-253
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• 2011

ZnO-based thin film transistors (TFTs) are of great interest for application in next generation flat panel displays. Most research has been based on amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) TFTs, rather than single binary oxides, such as ZnO, due to the reproducibility, uniformity, and surface smoothness of the IGZO active channel layer. However, recently, intrinsic ZnO-TFTs have been investigated, and TFT- arrayss have been demonstrated as prototypes of flat-panel displays and electronic circuits. However, ZnO thin films have some significant problems for application as an active channel layer of TFTs; it was easy to change the electrical properties of the i-ZnO thin films under external conditions. The variable electrical properties lead to unstable TFTs device characteristics under bias stress and/or temperature. In order to obtain higher performance and more stable ZnO-based TFTs, HZO thin film was used as an active channel layer. It was expected that HZO-TFTs would have more stable electrical characteristics under gate bias stress conditions because the binding energy of Hf-O is greater than that of Zn-O. For deposition of HZO thin films, Hf would be substituted with Zn, and then Hf could be suppressed to generate oxygen vacancies. In this study, the fabrication of the oxide-based TFTs with HZO active channel layer was reported with excellent stability. Application of HZO thin films as an active channel layer improved the TFT device performance and bias stability, as compared to i-ZnO TFTs. The excellent negative bias temperature stress (NBTS) stability of the device was analyzed using the HZO and i-ZnO TFTs transfer curves acquired at a high temperature (473 K).

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.543-543
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• 2013

Thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on oxide semiconductors have been regarded as promising alternatives for conventional amorphous and polycrystalline silicon TFTs. Oxide TFTs have several advantages, such as low temperature processing, transparency and high field-effect mobility. Lots of oxide semiconductors for example ZnO, SnO2, In2O3, InZnO, ZnSnO, and InGaZnO etc. have been researched. Particularly, zinc-tin oxide (ZTO) is suitable for channel layer of oxide TFTs having a high mobility that Sn in ZTO can improve the carrier transport by overlapping orbital. However, some issues related to the ZTO TFT electrical performance still remain to be resolved, such as obtaining good electrical contact between source/drain (S/D) electrodes and active channel layer. In this study, the bottom-gate type ZTO TFTs with staggered structure were prepared. Thin films of ZTO (40 nm thick) were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering and performed at room temperature in an Ar atmosphere with an oxygen partial pressure of 10%. After annealing the thin films of ZTO at $400^{\circ}C$ or an hour, Cu, Mo, ITO and Ti electrodes were used for the S/D electrodes. Cu, Mo, ITO and Ti (200 nm thick) were also deposited by DC magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The channel layer and S/D electrodes were defined using a lift-off process which resulted in a fixed width W of 100 ${\mu}m$ and channel length L varied from 10 to 50 ${\mu}m$. The TFT source/drain series resistance, the intrinsic mobility (${\mu}i$), and intrinsic threshold voltage (Vi) were extracted by transmission line method (TLM) using a series of TFTs with different channel lengths. And the performances of ZTO TFTs were measured by using HP 4145B semiconductor analyzer. The results showed that the Cu S/D electrodes had a high intrinsic field effect mobility and a low effective contact resistance compared to other electrodes such as Mo, ITO and Ti.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2015

CIGS solar cell consisted of various films. In this research, we investigated electrode materials in $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$ (CIGS) cells, including Al-doped ZnO (ZnO:Al), intrinsic ZnO (i-ZnO), and Al films. The sputtered ZnO:Al film with a sputtering power at 200W showed the lowest series resistance and highest cell efficiency. The electrical resistivity of the 200-W sputtered ZnO:Al film was $5.2{\times}10^{-4}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ by the rapid thermal annealing at $200^{\circ}C$ for 1 min. The electrical resistivity of i-ZnO was not measurable due to its high resistance. But the optical transmittance was highest with less oxygen supply and high efficiency cell was achieved with $O_2/(Ar+O_2)$ ratio was 1% due to the increase of short-circuit current. No significant change in the cell performance by inserting a Ni layer between Al and ZnO:Al films was observed.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.53-54
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• 2006

Arsenic doped p-type ZnO thin films have been realized on intrinsic (100) GaAs substrate by RF magnetron sputtering and thermal annealing treatment. p-Type ZnO exhibits the hole concentration of $9.684{\times}10^{19}cm^3$, resistivity of $2.54{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}cm$, and mobility of $25.37\;cm^2/Vs$. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of As doped p-type ZnO thin films reveal neutral acceptor bound exciton ($A^{0}X$) of 3.3437 eV and a transition between free electrons and acceptor levels (FA) of 3.2924 eV. Calculated acceptor binding energy ($E_A$) is about 0.1455 eV. Thermal activation and doping mechanism of this film have been suggested by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). p-Type formation mechanism of As doped ZnO thin film is more related to the complex model, namely, $As_{Zn}-2V_{Zn}$, in which the As substitutes on the Zn site, rather than simple model, Aso, in which the As substitutes on the O site. ZnO-based p-n junction was fabricated by the deposition of an undoped n-type ZnO layer on an As doped p-type ZnO layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.302-303
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• 2008

Nominally undoped (intrinsic) ZnO thin films were deposited by magnetron sputtering system with utilization of substrate bias on silicon at $450^{\circ}C$. Oxygen gas was selected as sputtering gas. The deposited thins were evaluated with X-ray diffraction (XRD) for their microstructure analysis and Hall effect in Van der Pauw configuration for their electrical property. The XRD shows that the magnitude and polarity of substrate bias significantly influence the microstructure and electrical properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.107-108
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• 2006

ZnO is a promising material for UV or blue LEDs p-Type ZnO thin films which are imperative for the p-n junction of LEDs are difficult to achieve because of strong compensation of intrinsic defects such as zinc interstitial and oxygen vacancy. The method of codoping group three elements and group five elements is effective for the realization of p-type ZnO films. In this study, We codoped N and Al m ZnO thin films by RF magnetron sputtering and annealed the films in sputtering chamber. Some films showed p-type conductivity m Seeback effect measurement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.297.2-297.2
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• 2013

Scavenging electricity from wasteful energy resources is currently an important issue and piezoelectric nanogenerators (NGs) based on zinc oxide (ZnO) are promising energy harvesters that can be adapted to various portable, wearable, self-powered electronic devices. Although ZnO has several advantages for NGs, the piezoelectric semiconductor material ZnO generate an intrinsic piezoelectric potential of a few volts as a result of its mechanical deformation. As grown, ZnO is usually n-type, a property that was historically ascribed to native defects. Oxygen vacancies (Vo) that work as donors exist in ZnO thin film and usually screen some parts of the piezoelectric potential. Consequently, the ZnO NGs' piezoelectric power cannot reach to its theoretical value, and thus decreasing the effect from Vo is essential. In the present study, c-axis oriented insulator-like sputtered ZnO thin films were grown in various temperatures to fabricate an optimized nanogenerator (NGs). The purity and crystalinity of ZnO were investigated with photoluminescence (PL). Moreover, by introducing a p-type polymer usually used in organic solar cell, it was discussed how piezoelectric passivation effect works in ZnO thin films having different types of defects. Prepared ZnO thin films have both Zn vacancies (accepter like) and oxygen vacancies (donor like). It generates output voltage 20 time lager than n-type dominant semiconducting ZnO thin film without p-type polymer conjugating. The enhancement is due to the internal accepter like point defects, zinc vacancies (VZn). When the more VZn concentration increases, the more chances to prevent piezoelectric potential screening effects are occurred, consequently, the output voltage is enhanced. Moreover, by passivating remained effective oxygen vacancies by p-type polymers, we demonstrated further power enhancement.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.302-307
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• 2019

The intrinsic oxygen-vacancy defects in ZnO have prevented the preparation of p-type ZnO with high carrier concentration. Therefore, in this work, the effect of the concentration of H₂O₂ (used as an oxygen source) on the oxygen-vacancy concentration in ZnO prepared by atomic layer deposition was investigated. The results indicated that the oxygen-vacancy concentration in the ZnO film decreased by the oxygen-rich growth conditions when using H₂O₂ as the oxygen precursor instead of a conventional oxygen source such as H₂O. The suppression of oxygen vacancies decreased the carrier concentration and increased the resistivity. Moreover, the growth orientation changed to the (002) plane, from the combined (100) and (002) planes, with the increase in H₂O₂ concentration. The passivation of oxygen-vacancy defects in ZnO can contribute to the preparation of p-type ZnO.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.86.2-86.2
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• 2015

Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cells have been fabricated using sputtered Cu/Sn/Zn metallic precursors on Mo coated sodalime glass substrate without using a toxic H2Se and H2S atmosphere. Cu/Sn/Zn metallic precursors with various thicknesses were prepared using DC magnetron sputtering process at room temperature. As-deposited metallic precursors were sulfo-selenized inside a graphite box containing S and Se pellets using rapid thermal processing furnace at various sulfur to selenium (S/Se) compositional ratio. Thin film solar cells were fabricated after sulfo-selenization process using a 65 nm CdS buffer, a 40 nm intrinsic ZnO, a 400 nm Al doped ZnO, and Al/Ni top metal contact. Effects of sulfur to selenium (S/Se) compositional ratio on the microstructure, crystallinity, electrical properties, and cell efficiencies have been studied using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscope, I-V measurement system, solar simulator, quantum efficiency measurement system, and time resolved photoluminescence spectrometer. Our fabricated Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cell shows the best conversion efficiency of 9.24 % (Voc : 454.6 mV, Jsc : 32.14 mA/cm2, FF : 63.29 %, and active area : 0.433 cm2), which is the highest efficiency among Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 thin film solar cells prepared using sputter deposited metallic precursors and without using a toxic H2Se gas. Details about other experimental results will be discussed during the presentation.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.281-287
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• 2009

ZnO thin film was grown on a sapphire single crystal substrate by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy. In addition to near band edge (NBE) emissions, both blue and green luminescences are also observed together. The PL intensity of the blue luminescence (BL) range from 2.7 to 2.9 eV increased as the amount of activated oxygen increased, but green luminescence (GL) was weakly observed at about 2.4 eV without much change in intensity. This result is quite unlike previous studies in which BL and GL were regarded as the transition between shallow donor levels such as oxygen vacancy and interstitial zinc. Based on the transition level and formation energy of the ZnO intrinsic defects predicted through the first principle calculation, which employs density functional approximation (DFA) revised by local density approximation (LDA) and the LDA+U approach, the green and blue luminescence are nearly coincident with the transition from the conduction band to zinc vacancies of $V^{2-}_{Zn}$ and $V^-_{Zn}$, respectively.